Class 




8wk_Jl3. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



VAUDEVILLE 



\ 




SARAH BERNHARDT 






VAUDEVILLE 

THE BOOK by CAROLINE 
CAFFIN * THE PICTURES 
m MARIUS DE ZAYAS 




MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
NEW YORK ' MCMXIV 



Copyright 1914 by 
Mitchell Kennerley 






JAN -2 1915 

©a.A393082 



IF we offend, it is with our good will 
That you should think we come not to 
offend ; 
But with good will to show our simple skill. 
That is the true beginning of our end 
Consider then — we come ; but in despite 
We do not come. As minding to content 

you, 
Our true intent is all for your delight. 
We are not here that you should here repent 

you. 
The actors are at hand; and by their show 
You shall know all that you are like to know. 
— From the Clown's Prologue in A Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream. 



FOREWORD 

THE caterer of amusements has learned 
not only to supply the programme 
but also to stimulate the zest and eagerness 
with which it is anticipated. For this pur- 
pose he must spice his offering with novelty, 
more novelty and always novelty. Nowhere 
is this truer than in Vaudeville, for so rapid 
are the changes in the public appetite that 
the whole character of the entertainment 
may vary from one season to another. What 
is popular this year may vanish next, and no 
prophet can foretell the favorites of three 
years hence. 

So in this book no attempt is made to cover 
the field of Vaudeville, for that field is as 
limitless as humanity itself. A few impres- 
sions which have projected themselves with 
more or less vividness upon the ever moving 

3 



4 FOREWORD 

picture of public favorites during the last 
few years, is the utmost that I have attempt- 
ed. Of the many whose "intent is all for our 
delight" I have spoken of only a few. And 
well I know that, even as I write, new faces, 
new motives, new achievements are pressing 
forward to take their places in the shifting 
panorama. 

New York, 1914. 



• 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction 9 

I. The Force of Personality 25 

II. The Appeal of Character 

Study 43 

III. The Entertainer as a 

Craftsman 61 

IV. Music and Near-Music 76 
V. The Lure of the Dance 96 

VI. Plays and Sketches 115 

VII. Versatile Mimics and Pro- 

teans 134 

VIII. Some English Visitors 151 

IX. Marvels of Strength and 

Skill 168 

X. Mysteries and Illusions 187 

XI. Miscellaneous Fun- 
Makers 199 

XII. Some Other Turns 216 
5 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Sarah Bernhardt 


Frontispiece T i™° 


Eva Tanguay 


25 


Gertrude Vanderbilt 


30 


Laddie Cliff 


35 


Jefferson d'Angelis 


39 


Nora Bayes 


43 


Harry Lauder 


50 


Mrs. Brown Potter 


54 


Yvette Guilbert 


57 


Maggie Cline 


61 


Lillian Russell 


66 


Marshall Montgomery- 


71 


Ethel Green 


74 


Sophy e Barnard 


76 


Lulu Glaser 


81 


Charles F. Seamon 


86 


Eunice Vance 


91 


Gertrude Hoffmann 


96 


Ruth St. Denis 


102 


Roszcika Dolly 


106 


Bessie Clayton 


111 


Valeska Suratt 

7 


115 



8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



Arnold Daly 120 ' 

Ethel Barrymore 125 

Nance O'Neil 130 

Cecelia Loftus 134 

Marshall Wilder 140* 

Kathleen Clifford 147' 

Marie Lloyd 151 

Vesta Victoria 156 y 

Alice Lloyd 160 

Kitty Gordon 165 

Annette Kellerman 168 

Will Rogers 175 

Dainty Marie 180 

Charmon 184' 

Ada Reeve 187 

Houdini 192 

Ching Ling Foo 197 

Ray Cox 199 

Bert Williams 202 

Frank Tinney 204 

Nat WiUs 207 

Isabel d'Armond 209 

Kate Elinor 211 

Mclntyre and Heath 213 

Gertrude Barnes 216 

Al Jolson 221 

La Petite Adelaide 224 



INTRODUCTION 

OUR true intent is all for your delight." 
This line, from the halting prologue 
of the Clown's Play in A Midsummer- 
Night's Dream might well be taken for the 
motto of Vaudeville. For it is ever the aim 
of the Vaudeville performer to seek the 
chord which shall evoke an answering vibra- 
tion in his audience and to attune his offer- 
ing in a key which, in spite of modulations 
and varying harmonies, shall strike constant- 
ly on that string. 

The ability to recognize this answering vi- 
bration seems to call into play a sort of sixth 
sense, in response to which those whose "true 
intent is all for our delight" evolve for them- 
selves an individual technique to accentuate 
the key in which they pitch their appeal. 
Into the discovery of this keynote and the 
creation of the technique it is inevitable that 

9 



10 VAUDEVILLE 

there will enter something of that mysteri- 
ous quality which we call Art. 

So little time is allowed to each performer 
that their appeal is necessarily frankly di- 
rect. It hides itself behind no subtleties but 
is personal and unashamed. It looks its 
audience straight in the face and says, in 
effect, "Look at ME! I am going to as- 
tonish you!" It makes no claim to aloof- 
ness or impersonality, but comes right down 
to the f ootlights and faces the crowd and 
tells it "All for your Delight We are — 
here." 

I was witnessing once a performance in 
Vaudeville, in which one of the turns was a 
little one act comedy by an actor of consid- 
erable repute on the legitimate stage. I am 
not going to tell his name though most of 
you would know it if I did. Behind me sat 
two young ladies, one of whom evinced her 
familiarity with the various turns by a run- 
ning commentary on the age or novelty of 
each act and comparisons of it with other 
turns by the same performers ; by explana- 



INTRODUCTION 11 

tions of what was coming and a narration 
of personal details concerning the perform- 
ers of the nature that find their way into 
the "theatrical notes" of the daily papers. 
When it came to the turn of the aforesaid 
actor the following conversation took place : 

"D'ye know this one, Mame?" 

"No, but I heard of him starrin' in high- 
brow stuff on Broadway." 

"What did he quit for?" 

"Search me!" 

The comedy began and the actor made his 
appearance, absorbed in his part, taking no 
apparent notice of his audience. The com- 
ment behind me was resumed. 

"Well! he certainly is a bum actor. See 
him turn his back on the audience!" 

"Seems to be actin' to himself, don't 
he?" 

"H'm, guess that's why he had to leave 
Broadway." 

The play continued. As the interest de- 
veloped the conversation languished some- 
what but presently I heard a loud whisper: 



12 VAUDEVILLE 

"Say, he does make it seem sort of real, 
don't he?" 

"Yes, but he don't act." 

"Aw! but it's sort of real, ain't it?" 

The climax found both ladies too absorbed 
to talk, but after the curtain fell on the third 
or fourth recall the final verdict was ren- 
dered. 

"It did seem sort of real, but he ain't got 
no manners. I guess that's why he had to 
quit Broadway." 

It was evidently the frank, personal ap- 
peal that these ladies missed, and the imper- 
sonal response to his curtain calls was the 
last straw that caused their resentment. 

To provide true delight for a vaudeville 
audience you must have as a provoking cause 
some achievement apparently greater than 
that of the individuals in the audience. If 
the medium of the appeal be daring, the risk 
must be greater — or appear to be — than the 
man in front would care to face. If humor 
be the medium, not a single line must miss 
fire. If it be vulgarity, it will be grosser 
than the audience, as individuals, would 



INTRODUCTION 13 

stand for. If it be skill, it must be proved 
as you watch it. You could never amuse 
an audience by displaying to it a specimen 
of skilful and minute engraving, the result 
of many years of toil. But let them see 
a cartoonist dash off a rough sketch in a 
few lines made before their eyes and he has 
secured their delight. In every case the ef- 
fect must be vivid, instantaneous and un- 
mistakable. 

It is a very catholic and hospitable en- 
tertainment, embracing more forms of 
amusement than we could enumerate, this 
that we now call Vaudeville. Its name has 
little connection with its actual purpose and 
is only the latest of a long line of aliases, 
and not particularly appropriate at that. 
For the word owes its origin to a little 
French village in Normandy in the valley 
of the river Vire, named Vaudevire or Val- 
de-vire. Here lived, in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, one Olivier Bassel or Basselin, a poet, 
the composer of convivial songs, which be- 
came popular and were sung by the common 



14 VAUDEVILLE 

people, and introduced into plays and en- 
tertainments. The name was thus given to 
all such songs, and later to the entertain- 
ments into which they were introduced. Dr. 
Johnson alludes to Vaudeville as a species 
of comic opera, or dialogue interspersed with 
lively songs. The songs were often Rabe- 
laisian in their frankness or cutting in their 
satire, but this was in accordance with the 
age in which they flourished. Just why the 
name has superseded the older one of 
"Varieties" I do not know. 

But under its various names and in every 
clime this form of entertainment has flour- 
ished. The Indian Fakir, the Turkish 
Story Teller, the Egyptian Snake Charmer, 
the Japanese Wrestler, the plaintive mando- 
lin-accompanied ditties of the Cingalese, 
each makes appeal for the delight of the 
audience. 

Here are some of its aliases : the Oriental 
Bazaar; the Village Fair of Merrie Eng- 
land; the Cafe Chantant of France, where 
originally performers and audience were all 



INTRODUCTION 15 

one; the old English Music Hall, with its 
master of ceremonies, announcing with a 
blow from his mallet: "The next number on 
our programme, gentlemen," and advising 
"Order your drinks, ladies and gentlemen"; 
the old Museum of this country with its 
freaks and monsters and "educational fea- 
tures" as additional attractions ; and later the 
Variety Theatres where many of our present 
favorites passed their apprenticeship. 

It was only in comparatively recent years 
that the management of these entertain- 
ments sought to make of them places of 
harmless amusement and recreation for all 
classes of society, to which women and chil- 
dren might go unescorted without fear. The 
man who frequented the old English Music 
Hall did not take his wife or mother or 
sister. 

Watch the audience trooping into a New 
York Vaudeville house. There is no more 
democratic crowd to be seen anywhere. It 
differs from a theatre audience in the fact 



16 VAUDEVILLE 

that usually more than half is composed of 
men. There are many reasons for this. One 
of them is the permission to smoke in parts 
of the house. Another is the familiar cry of 
the "tired business man" who doesn't want 
to be asked to think, or even to keep his mind 
continually on one set of characters. It is 
something of a mental effort to watch the 
development of a play that lasts the whole 
evening. Then there are many men who 
dislike continual conversation. I suppose 
no women object to this. 

An excuse once offered to me by an habi- 
tue of the Vaudeville for preferring that 
form of entertainment to a play was that, 
in Vaudeville, if one turn be bad you al- 
ways hope that the next will be good ; where- 
as in a play, if the first act be bad, you know 
that the rest will continue to grow worse. 

Anyhow, men of all degrees come troop- 
ing in; some alone, some in batches, and 
some accompanied by women, or more often 
by one woman, wherein again is a difference 
from the theatre-going party. Meanwhile 



INTRODUCTION 17 

at the Matinee women will arrive alone and 
in parties, especially at the uptown houses 
or in Brooklyn. There is a large proportion 
of non-New Yorkers, men in town on busi- 
ness trips, college boys come up for a lark, 
business men with an hour to spare before 
an appointment. I sat one afternoon in 
front of a group of well-built, upstanding 
young Irishmen whose conversation seemed 
to prove them to be police officers off duty. 
They discussed politics discreetly without 
naming names, especial interest being shown 
in the sins of omission and commission of 
one "John" to whom "the organization" had 
shown some favor, though he was voted "too 
stand offish, never goes around with the 
boys." One of the group was escorting a 
lady and only when "John" failed as a topic 
of conversation did he introduce her to his 
companions with the suave : "Have you meet 
my lady friend," and the conversation was 
adapted to suit her range of ideas. 

On another visit I sat next to two dear 
little old Brooklyn ladies who were delighted 



18 VAUDEVILLE 

with the audacities of Gertrude Vanderbilt, 
because she "looked so like dear Eloise." On 
the other hand they declared a visiting Eng- 
lish singer to be a "perfectly odious person. 
She distorts herself in such an unwomanly 
way." 

Now, betwixt these contrasting elements 
— and the extremes are even greater than the 
two I have named — the programme must fill 
in the breach. There must be something for 
every one and, though the fastidious may 
be a little shocked (the fastidious rather like 
to be shocked sometimes), they must not be 
offended, while the seeker for thrills must 
on no account be bored by too much 
mildness. 

It is, therefore, no easy task which con- 
fronts the manager. And added to his other 
worries is a demon of which he lives in fear. 
He seeks it out in every act. He gazes sus- 
piciously at every visitor for fear the latter 
has it concealed somewhere. I do not know, 
but I strongly suspect him of holding a cere- 
mony of exorcism every Monday morning, 



INTRODUCTION 19 

sprinkling every crevice and cranny, every 
bit of scenery, every prop, "sealing unto him- 
self" against its baleful influence every 
sceneshifter, limelight man and orchestra 
leader, and even then being worried and 
haunted with dread of it. 

And the name of this hideous demon — its 
dreaded name — is Highbrow! Of course it 
never has intruded. Occasionally some her- 
etic manager has dared to take a chance 
and allow a suspect to appear on his boards. 
If the venture succeeded, we know for cer- 
tain that it was free from the taint. For it 
is the first law of the cult of Vaudeville that 
"Highbrow Stuff Never Pays." 

With memories of Sarah Bernhardt still in 
our minds, we may doubt this theory. High- 
brows have been known to claim kinship with 
her and with others who have appeared in 
Vaudeville. But NO! These cannot be 
Highbrow. These are Successes, and as 
such appeal to ordinary human beings. But 
the World moves, and sometimes a curious 
tremor indicates that even the firm-rooted 



20 VAUDEVILLE 

prejudice against the Highbrow is being 
shaken by a suspicion that perhaps, after 
all, he too is a human being and appeals to 
other human beings. 

Let us look again at our audience. There 
it sits, waiting for the show to begin, good- 
natured, eager to be amused, willing to ac- 
cept its entertainers at their own valuation 
just so long as they are amused. It will ap- 
plaud faintly even an unpopular turn from 
pure unwillingness to be hypercritical, but 
its genuine appreciation is unmistakable. I 
am not referring to "tryouts" or "amateur 
nights," where the baiting of the performer 
is as much a part of the show as the slaughter 
of horses at a bull fight. Those are an- 
other story. But I have frequently heard 
people speak slightingly of a performance 
and then applaud at its close from pure 
goodwill to the performer. 

"What are you applauding for, you said 
it was a poor turn?" I once heard a woman 
ask of her escort, who had indeed condemned 



INTRODUCTION 21 

the act as "rotten." But he replied good- 
naturedly 

"Oh, well! He's got his bread and butter 
to earn like the rest of us." 

But the manager knows that, good-na- 
tured and tolerant as the audience seems, its 
patience would soon be exhausted if he al- 
lowed it to be abused. It would make very 
little open demonstration, but it would cease 
to frequent his house, regardless of the 
fact that he too has his bread and butter 
to earn. 

It is that feeling of good-fellowship that 
makes the audience love to be on confidential 
terms with the performer, to be treated as 
an intimate. It loves to have the actor step 
out of his part and speak of his dressing- 
room, or hint at his salary, or flourish a 
make-up towel. There are no secrets, no re- 
serves between them, they know each other 
as man and man — or they think they do. 
For the actor has studied the little weak- 
nesses of his audience, and plays up to them. 

For he knows that, above all things, the 



22 VAUDEVILLE 

audience is there to laugh. Give it an ex- 
cuse for that, and it is his. It will seize any 
excuse to indulge in this, its favorite pas- 
time, and, if it may not laugh with you, it 
will need very little to make it laugh at you. 
The slightest contretemps in the perform- 
ance, and your audience is in a gale. The 
unexpected appearance of a cat on the stage 
and every chance of seriousness is gone. 
Even when laughter was intended, I have 
heard a queerly pitched laugh from the au- 
dience attract the amusement of the house 
'from the performer to itself and almost 
break up the show. 

But there are performers to whom these 
interruptions would be well-nigh impossi- 
ble. They dominate their audience and hold 
them enthralled under their spell. They 
have learned, either by experience or instinct, 
so exactly the key in which to pitch their 
appeal, in order to evoke that answering 
vibration from their audience, that they can 
sound it at will, modulate it into what har- 
monies and expression they please, and ever 



INTRODUCTION 23 

be sure of the response. Let us watch some 
of them as they do it, and try to catch a hint 
of their methods, and possibly analyze the 
reason of our response. 

The show is about to begin. The orches- 
tra leader is in his place, tapping with his 
baton the call to attention. The music starts, 
the curtain rises. 

"The actors are at hand and by their show 
you shall know all that you are like to 
know." 




EVA TANGUAY 



VAUDEVILLE 

CHAPTER I 

The Force of Personality 

A CHARACTERISTIC Vaudeville 
turn, and one dear to the heart of 
every true Vaudevillian, is that of the Song 
and Dance artist. He or she, for the turn 
may include either or both, seems to be the 
epitome of Vaudeville. The audience may 
be forced into admiration by the superb act- 
ing of a Bernhardt or the dancing of Ruth 
St. Denis, but it never loses consciousness 
that these are exotics, who demand a certain 
readjustment of its point of view. But it 
settles back into its seat with comfortable, 
confidential good humor when one of its 
own song and dance artists approaches it 
with the direct, familiar appeal of this child 
of its own creation. It knows for a cer- 
25 



26 VAUDEVILLE 

tainty when it may laugh and when it may 
sigh, and it may be asked to do both in one 
breath: but the appeal will not be puzzlingly 
subtle or rarefied, nor will it leave any doubt 
as to just how one should feel about it. The 
only elusive quality in these turns is that ever 
interesting one of personality and on this 
each song and dance artist founds his in- 
dividual edifice. 

For at first glance the special favor for 
this or that artist may seem to be a mys- 
tery. Here is one whose voice is meagre 
and whose dancing is negligible. Yet her 
appearance is greeted with salvos of ap- 
plause; while another, with pretty face, 
graceful dancing and sweet singing voice, 
attracts but languid approval. But as we 
become better acquainted with the methods 
and appeal of the different artists we find 
it is ever the strong personality and the 
ability to get it across the footlights and 
impress it upon the audience that distinguish 
the popular performer. And the ability to 
do this, quite as much as the ability to sing 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 27 

or dance, is a matter of special study and 
watchful experience. Of course it looks 
easy and natural, as if it were no effort; 
but when you see the same turn given by the 
same artist two or three times you become 
aware of how little that is effective is left 
to chance, even in what seem like impromptu 
effects. That genial familiarity, that confid- 
ing smile which seems to break out so spon- 
taneously, the casual entrance and glance 
round the audience — all have been nicely 
calculated and their effect registered, but 
with the artist's sympathy which informs 
each with the spirit of the occasion and robs 
it of mechanical artifice. 

Let us look at the performances of two 
or three of those who have created a me- 
dium of their own, whose appeal has that 
originality which for want of a better name 
we must call genius. 

A singer, yes — She can dance too, if need 
be, but never mind that, it is the singing in 
her case that counts — Miss Nora Bayes. A 
figure, slight, almost fragile, but suggest- 



28 VAUDEVILLE 

ing graceful curves. The arms from neck 
to finger-tips, the outline of the eyelids, the 
poise of the head, the line from neck to feet, 
all are drooping curves, very pliant and ever 
changing. Is there such a thing as sparkling 
languor? If there is, she has it. She greets 
the audience with a slow, sideway glance 
that seems to sweep, curving out from her 
eyes over her face. Then a flash of teeth 
and dimples, and again the face is almost 
serious, with a little wist fulness, as though 
she would hate to think that you might not 
like her. Now she turns again with sudden 
glance, to see if you caught the curving 
smile which followed the signs of your ap- 
proval. 

Her song is given so simply and naturally 
that it is hard to catch the artifice of it. 
There is a roguish sense of humor which 
brightens the eyes and curves the lips and 
sensitive little nostrils in a flashing smile, 
never straight at the audience, but sideways, 
with an archness which flatters you that she 
is confident you can see the humor as well 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 29 

as she can. And, withal, there are a certain 
delicacy and gentleness about her which 
makes you want to meet her halfway. She 
needs no boisterous energy; you do not wish 
that she should have to work too hard for 
you. She can emphasize a point by a sly 
glance or a piquant moue, far better than 
by loudness or force. Her singing of 
"Kelly," one of the best of her songs in re- 
cent years and Irish through and through, 
had no particular energy or forcefulness,but 
was even a little deprecating in its sauciness. 
There is something in the quality of her 
voice that suggests what Kipling calls the 
"throaty sob," and it is not entirely absent 
even in her merriest moments. It is gen- 
uinely Irish, characteristic of the nation 
which is merry in its fighting and saddest in 
its songs. 

A&> Afc >fl% «jfc Afc Afc jig, 

Now let us turn to an artist of the Dance 
and Song with the emphasis decidedly on 
the Dance — Gertrude Vanderbilt. 

Whatever nationality may claim her de- 



30 VAUDEVILLE 

scent, Gertrude Vanderbilt may fairly be 
admitted to be a typical American girl. The 
long straight limbs, alert and yet a little 
drooping in their lines; the free and un- 
afraid carriage of the head ; the arms rather 
long in proportion; the shoulders a trifle 
broad and carried erect, — all these may be 
duplicated many times any fine winter after- 
noon on Fifth Avenue or the main thorough- 
fare of almost any city in the Union. And 
not only in physical makeup but in the spirit 
of her performance we find the epitome of 
much that characterizes the American girl. 
For she is in high spirits, carried along by 
a flood of youth and energy that makes for 
the joy of life. And added to this are a natu- 
ral grace and the audacity that comes from 
never having met with defeat. Difficulties 
she may have encountered, yet one is con- 
vinced that they proved but a source of stim- 
ulation and were eventually overcome. So 
now she faces you with laughing cordiality, 
pleased that you are pleased with her, but 
never doubting for a moment that you 




r>K5^s ^ 



GERTRUDE VANDERBILT 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 31 

would be. She sings with frank, unpreten- 
tious simplicity, not over-anxious to make 
points but by no means without a sense of 
humor. And then she dances and all the 
world seems young. So gay, so happy, so 
pleased with herself and with everything 
else that her good humor is infectious ! The 
long limbs are compact of suppleness and 
agility, and swirl in quite surprising orbits. 
The sinuous figure bends and turns and 
skims over the ground, bounding with long, 
boyish strides, carefree, laughing, joyous. 

She is appearing with her clever partner, 
George Moore. Perhaps it is their little 
burlesque melodrama, "The Villain still 
Pursued her." And the villain glides and 
grasps and stealthily approaches with truly 
villainous intensity, the grotesque angles of 
his limbs and their jerky movements full of 
dramatic drollery. And the lady flits with 
playful elusiveness around him, fully en- 
joying the fun and entering into it with 
dash and vigor, laughing at the absurdity of 
the thing just as frankly as the audience 



32 VAUDEVILLE 

does. When they dance together it is as a 
happy boy and girl having a good time. 
She is breezy, daring and buoyant, but free 
from coquetry or conscious allurement. As 
he whirls her round in a mad, headlong spin, 
she laughs from sheer love of the dare-devil 
adventure of it, assured of her own cool- 
headed poise, while he accepts her audacities 
in the spirit of frank camaraderie. The 
technical achievement of their dance is by no 
means extraordinary, but it is easy, graceful 
and very nonchalant, amused with itself as 
well as happy to amuse others. Laughing, 
romping, swirling youth; they seem to be 
just old enough to know that they are young. 
No wonder that even the most staid among 
their audience feel a glow of sympathy for 
these happy young people in whom they 
recognise an echo of the gaiety and irrespon- 
sibility of eternal youth. 

******* 

And what is this long-legged, sauntering 
creature who lolls on to the stage, too bored 
and supercilious to greet the audience with 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 33 

anything but a stare of surprise at their 
"queerness"? It is Laddie Cliff, he of the 
wonderful legs and abnormally vacant coun- 
tenance. Some almost imperceptible sign, a 
twitch of the eyebrow, a turn of the head, 
and the audience are made aware that he 
is as conscious as they of the ludicrousness 
of his silliness. Otherwise, so absolutely is 
he absorbed in his impersonation, that the 
contemptuous surprise of his regard would 
be intolerable. He regards all those peo- 
ple out there as such extraordinary crea- 
tures, don't cher know? And he relates with 
the baldest self-complacency the amazement 
that his own eccentricities have created in 
others. The fragile legs seem scarcely able 
to support the languid body and really to 
need the assistance of the stout walking stick. 
In a voice high-pitched and querulous he 
recounts the lack of appreciation shown by 
a vulgar world or makes a few cynical ob- 
servations on life in general. And yet, de- 
spite self-complacency and cynicism, there is 
nothing ill-humored about this callow philos- 



34 VAUDEVILLE 

opher, who retains some of the illusions of 
youth in spite of the would-be worldliness 
displayed either as the Eton schoolboy or 
the very young man-about-town. His catch- 
words of commonplace phrases, with their 
unexpected twists of meaning, set you 
laughing with him as well as at him. 

And while you are laughing, the strange, 
pipestem legs begin to twinkle and cavort 
in the most astonishing convolutions. The 
seemingly languid body sways in unison, 
while the sharp-featured, vacant face 
watches in amazed disapproval, which con- 
stantly jerks the limbs out of the rhythm of 
equilibrium and throws them into impossible 
attitudes and angles, from which predica- 
ments they extricate themselves with agile 
dexterity and continue their capers. This 
way, that way, they fly ; feet soaring to weird 
heights, seemingly far higher than anatomy 
allows. And the disapproving face calls 
them down with the suddenness of a mother 
catching her offspring stealing jam from 
the top shelf of the pantry. Then to show 




LADDIE CLIFF 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 35 

that theirs is no guilty conscience, up they 
fly again, those gay, irresponsible legs. It's 
just a little way they have, so please excuse 
them, the face seems to say. And thus it 
continues, the face apparently surprised and 
apologetic for the unconventionalities of 
those anatomy- and gravitation-defying 
legs. 

Laddie Cliff's songs are slight. Possibly, 
sung by any one else, they would amount 
to nothing out of the ordinary. But given 
with his mixture of cunning and simplicity 
there is not one that does not hit the bull's 
eye of humor, in spite of the English of 
it. 

Now, having looked at one artist who 
sings more than she dances ; at another who 
dances better than she sings; and at a man 
who both sings and dances, let us look at 
another, a very puzzling enigma and a con- 
tradiction of every preconceived notion that 
we may have as to what constitutes a suc- 
cessful entertainer. A Song and Dance 



36 VAUDEVILLE 

Artist who does not dance, cannot sing, is 
not beautiful, witty or graceful, but who 
dominates her audience more entirely than 
anyone on the Vaudeville stage — Eva Tan- 
guay! 

How shall we account for the almost 
breathless intensity with which the audience 
awaits her entrance? We suddenly find that 
every one is sitting up, straight and eager. 
The orchestra is playing with new vim. The 
instruments seem sharper and louder. The 
very lights appear to burn brighter, so tense 
is the atmosphere of expectancy. What is 
this noise that breaks on our ears? A loud 
chattering voice, high-pitched, strident, vol- 
uble. Look! Here she comes, with quick, 
fluttering steps and restless outstretched 
hands, a dynamic personality all nerves and 
excitement. 

The first thing that strikes you in her 
appearance is the trim, alert figure, held so 
tense and straight that energy exudes from 
it. Then your eye is arrested by the wild 
mop of stiff, tousled blonde hair, which 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 37 

seems so charged with electric vigor that no 
amount of combing or brushing could alter 
its assertive unruliness. It seems as if the 
exuberance of her intense vitality radiates 
through this raffish aureole, setting the sur- 
rounding atmosphere agog with vivacity. 

Presently, you notice the saucy, broad, 
good-humored face, with large, smiling 
mouth and pertly turned-up nose. The eyes 
are small and impudent and snap and 
sparkle as though they were black, but I 
strongly suspect that they are really blue. 
Every inch of her from the topmost spike 
of yellow hair to the tip of her never-rest- 
ing toe is alive, nervous, vital. 

The whirlwind of sound and the patter 
of restless, aimlessly pacing feet continue in- 
cessantly. The voice has no music in it. 
It emphatically and unhurriedly retails its 
self-centred chantings or it shrieks against 
the full blare of the orchestra and mightily 
prevails. The steps make no attempt at 
rhythmic movement. Sometimes they prance 
in gleeful abandon with a wide fling; but 



38 VAUDEVILLE 

the greater part of the time it is patter, pat- 
ter, patter, first in this direction, then in 
that, back and forth, up and down, nowhere 
in particular, turning sharply in the mid- 
dle of a step to go in the opposite direction 
— just the undirected romping of a healthy, 
restless child. 

And naively, childishly, self-conscious are 
her songs — if one can call them songs. Mere 
recitation of her own eccentricities, her ex- 
travagances, her defiance of all conventions, 
with a refrain of "I don't care," phrased in 
one way or other, forms the topic. There 
is no appeal in her attitude toward her pub- 
lic, just a saucy, impudent grin. "I don't 
care" she seems to say; "this is my stunt — 
like it or not, it's fun to do it, so I don't 
care!" And the audience likes it. 

Why? Well, I have tried very hard to find 
out, even to the extent of questioning my 
neighbors. The replies I have received 
have not been very illuminating. "She is 
different," said one. That is true, but is that 
enough? "She is so clever," said another. 




JEFFERSON d'aNGELIS 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 39 

To my further question, "In what way?" 
there was no satisfactory reply. "She is so 
happy," was another suggestion, but watch- 
ing closely I was not convinced. Exuberant 
vitality, excitement, and self-assertiveness — 
yes, all these in abundance, but happiness? 
No, she only "makes a noise like it." 

I wonder if the secret, after all, is that she 
is the epitome of that strong force of mod- 
ern civilization — advertising. It is more 
than the press-agent's work, though that 
has been very well done. We have come, 
already impressed by the amount of her sal- 
ary, her continual engagements, her popu- 
larity. But she herself tells us and keeps 
on telling us how extraordinary she is, how 
successful, how unassailable by criticism and 
how popular. Again and again we are re- 
minded that money is flowing in on her. 
Again and again we are informed that she 
is unique. And this reiteration, so forcibly 
and believingly uttered, with an assurance 
that we really are interested, hypnotizes us 
into a belief that we are. The public likes 



40 VAUDEVILLE 

it, it is the secret of the success of advertis- 
ing and here is that success embodied. 

It must be admitted that she is good ad- 
vertising material. She has vivacity that 
impresses her audience as spontaneous; as- 
surance that looks like conviction and a good 
humor that passes for frankness, while per- 
sonality and vitality she has in abundance. 
These form foundation enough on which to 
raise a perfect sky-scraper of illusion at 
which every passer-by will gape and about 
which the man in the street will glibly quote 
any information put into his mouth by an 
interested exploiter, proud to be familiar 
with so audacious an enterprise. "Make 'em 
talk, make 'em laugh!" Behold the end de- 
sired by the cult of self — Advertisement! 

It is when a concrete accomplishment is 
attempted that you discover how flimsy is 
the edifice. In the so-called "Salome" we 
look in vain for any expression of even the 
most elemental of the passions of that grim 
drama. For the abandon of the dance we 
see only the exuberant prancings of a gig- 



FORCE OF PERSONALITY 41 

gling girl. Her horror at the reanimation 
of the head of the murdered prophet has 
no more of awe in it than has the hysterical 
shrieking of a servant maid, alarmed by a 
mouse. 

The best act that I have seen Eva Tan- 
guay do was one which introduced two droll 
little baby boys. There was a touch of 
genius in that. For they are not seraphic, 
angel-faced infants, but homely little tow- 
headed tykes, full of the very mischief, 
who go through their burlesque of her 
with gusto and spar at each other at its 
close as joyously and whole-heartedly as 
is the nature of all vigorous self-asser- 
tive young animals. And in her attitude 
toward them there is no sentimentality or 
mawkishness, but a wholesome, breezy fel- 
lowship, kindly and good-hearted. 

Yet the fact remains that what the audi- 
ence expects from her is energy, not art, 
and this is all that she lays claim to. She 
is an enigma hard to solve. Either she is 
the Circe of the Force of Advertising, in- 



42 VAUDEVILLE 

toxicating her admirers with the exuberance 
of her own verbosity. Or else she has in- 
deed caught something of the elemental 
dynamic buoyancy that enables mankind to 
over-ride disaster and, having caught it, is 
radiating it upon a nerve- wracked world. 
Anyway, she is an Enigma. 







NORA BAYES 






CHAPTER II 

The Appeal of Character Study 

EVERYONE of us prides him- or her- 
self on being a student of human na- 
ture. We like to discover little traits and 
foibles in our fellows and to believe that, 
unless they are totally depraved and wrong- 
headed, we can understand them and make 
allowance for their "queerness." So the por- 
trayer of character who will show to us 
types sufficiently unusual to pique our in- 
terest and curiosity, but human enough for 
us to recognize the essential characteristics 
not only amuses us with his emphasis on 
the humor of his study but flatters us by 
making us feel how thoroughly we under- 
stand human nature. 

Of course we don't, not even the wisest 
of us. We understand a few essentials, com- 

4a 



44 VAUDEVILLE 

mon to the average of humanity, and are 
amused at the strong strokes with which the 
portrayer sketches in the individualities. At 
the best we translate what we observe 
through the medium of our own dispositions, 
all of which differ, so that at the same per- 
formance we are all receiving different im- 
pressions, and that is as near understanding 
as we can hope to get. Usually the por- 
trayer must exaggerate the peculiarities or 
we should miss their significance, just as 
we are continually missing the significance 
of individual traits in real life. 

The great portrayers of character in lit- 
erature, such as Balzac and Dickens, knew 
this and knew, too, how to call our imagina- 
tion into play to fill in the outlines left blank 
or only faintly indicated. Consequently 
we feel that the characters they portray are 
as familiar to us as our own personal friends, 
if not more so. Similarly, on the stage, the 
character-comedian presents his types with 
a few bold strokes that stimulate our imagi- 
nation, and an extra emphasis on certain pe- 



CHARACTER STUDY 45 

culiarities that do not necessarily distort but 
make larger and more distinct the features 
they wish to portray. The effect is not un- 
like those photographs taken at Coney 
Island, in which the head of the sitter is 
printed about four times larger in propor- 
tion to the body, but the likeness is unal- 
tered. 

The characterizations of both Albert Che- 
valier and Harry Lauder are emphasized in 
this manner. The salient traits of their sub- 
jects are made larger and more perceptible 
but never wilfully distorted. The humor- 
ous appeal comes by an enforcing of native 
peculiarities, not by inventing absurdities. 

It is a long time since Albert Chevalier 
first introduced to us his London Coster. 
We had not known the type on this side of 
the Atlantic; and, truly, I believe that be- 
fore the day of Chevalier very few British- 
ers were really familiar with this strongly 
individualized clan living in the very heart 
of their metropolis. For he is not an ordi- 
nary cockney, this coster with his quaint 



46 VAUDEVILLE 

costume and ready wit. His clan lives apart 
from their neighbors. He "keeps hisself 
to hisself" as he would tell you, marries the 
sister or daughter of a fellow coster and has 
his social set, distinct and separate as the 
caste of a Hindoo. He differs somewhat in 
appearance from the ordinary cockney. His 
features are more strongly modeled ; and his 
body, though smaller, is more strongly knit. 
His tongue is fully as glib but his vernacular 
is peculiarly his own and of a pungency 
not always acceptable to outsiders. I speak 
in the present tense, but they tell me he is 
no longer found on 'Empstead 'eath on 
Bank 'olidy," in his smart square-cut coat of 
smooth cloth with velveteen collar, cuffs and 
pocket flaps; his flaring "trousies" and rows 
and rows of "pearlies," twinkling up and 
down his person; his low-crowned "bowler" 
or his cloth cap adorning the head of his 
"donna," while her feather-bedecked head- 
dress flaunts on his own close-cut poll. I 
even hear that no longer does he drive his 
"moke" to Epsom to view the classic Derby, 



CHARACTER STUDY 47 

with his Missis by his side in her regulation 
plumed hat, proud and independent as the 
occupant of the smartest equipage on the 
hillside. I am glad I saw him in his prime, 
with his holiday wreath of cut paper of 
gaudy color round his hat ; I am glad, if only 
because when I hear Chevalier in his coster 
songs I feel even more sure than most peo- 
ple that I can understand. But I suppose 
that seventy-five per cent, of the audience 
feels just the same way. 

For Chevalier places him there before 
us, a vital human creature, rich in diversi- 
ties of humor and pathos and sentiment, 
alive and convincing. What a glorious as- 
surance there is in his whole demeanor! 
What a swagger in that long, darting 
stride! His voice, coarse and vibrant with 
the cockney twang, at times can soften to 
melting, shamefaced tenderness and pride, as 
he teUs us of "My Old Dutch" or the "Lit- 
tle Nipper." He has supplied the sugges- 
tive outline of a picture of rude interiors, 
rich in hearty human feeling, and our imagi- 



48 VAUDEVILLE 

nation fills in the details to whatever extent 
we choose and the wife and little son are 
as real as if they stood before us on the 
stage. 

Then see him, as with jaunty, imperturb- 
able good temper and humorous apprecia- 
tion, he describes how he "Knocked 'em in 
the Old Kent Road," or pays his tribute to 
Mrs. "Enery 'Awkins!" Every line of his 
body responds to the varying sentiments. 
The cock of the head, the square of the el- 
bows, the raised shoulders, the foot thrust 
forward, heel down, toes elevated in his ag- 
gressive moments, the explanatory flirt of 
the thumb in this direction or that, the dig- 
nified but angular carriage in his tender 
moments. What pictures they all make! 
Ever there are a frankness and sincerity 
about him, and impulsiveness and simple- 
ness of motive. And then, when from sheer 
gladness and jubilation he can express him- 
self no other way, he breaks into a double 
shuffle, and heels and toe beat a tattoo, light 
and rapid as the roll of a kettle drum, while 



CHARACTER STUDY 49 

head and hand perform humorous gestures 
of their own. Or else, he takes his hat from 
his head and with an impudent, comical ges- 
ture, replaces it an amazing angle which 
gives fresh grotesqueness to his figure; and 
this he will do in half a dozen diif erent man- 
ners, each with a distinct expression of its 
own. 

There are other pictures, too, a Chelsea 
Pensioner, a broken down actor, an old 
countryman, each one notable in its way but 
none as vital and human or so distinctly a 
creation as the coster. Chevalier has even 
attempted the "legitimate drama," but his 
performance, though creditable in itself, was 
not what the public wants from him. He 
has made us acquainted with this quaint 
coster fellow and, if we set out with the hope 
of meeting him, we are not content to be 
put off with some one else, no matter how 
worthy that someone else may be. And if 
it is true that the genuine breed of this ur- 
ban peasant is dying out, long may we have 



50 VAUDEVILLE 

our Albert Chevalier to keep its memory 
green. 

In many respects Harry Lauder is akin to 
Chevalier. They both work from the inner 
nature to the outward expression of their 
subject. They both represent the peasant — 
shrewd with the native shrewdness not 
taught in books; both have a philosophy 
gained by experience not by study. But 
Lauder's Scot has consciously summed up 
his experience and has grown canny, while 
Chevalier's coster is still much of a child of 
impulse. 

Probably, if you met Harry Lauder un- 
known on the street, you might say that he 
was too thick set and heavy featured to 
make a good actor. But then, on the street 
he would not be walking with that perky 
strut and his eyes would not be twinkling 
nor could you watch the slow crafty smile 
wrinkling his nose as it spreads over his 
face. If you have seen all this, there is 
no longer any question of acting. For the 
time being he is the character he interprets 




HARRY LAUDER 



CHARACTER STUDY 51 

and his whole face and body are moulded 
to the requirements of that character. 

As Chevalier's peasant is a peasant of 
the town, so Lauder's is essentially the peas- 
ant of the country. Slow thinking, cau- 
tious, deliberately studying those he comes 
in contact with, a little self-conscious, watch- 
ing the effect he is producing. He tells in 
his broad Scottish accent of his waggeries, 
but, even while he is convulsed at his own 
pawky humor, he stops to give us a sharp 
glance to make sure we are not laughing at 
him instead of with him. He is careful to 
explain that he is no "fule," whatever you 
may take him for. He quite appreciates his 
own value and don't you forget it. He struts 
and preens himself, while he mentions as one 
of the admirable points of his "Daisy" that 
"She's very fond of Sandy." The jaunty 
cock of his head shows that he thinks her 
taste good in the matter for he is no end of 
a fellow, this Sandy in his smart uniform, 
with his little swagger stick. And he tells 
you with a sly leer that he is a gay dog, the 



52 VAUDEVILLE 

"pet o' all the slavies"; why! it's just terri- 
ble the way he breaks hearts. Or he de- 
scribes the wedding orgies with chuckling 
reminiscence of the vagaries and antics in 
which the usually hard-headed, hard-work- 
ing guests indulged by the time they were 
a "wee bit f oo\" Or with unctuous, baccha- 
nalian fervor he descants on the virtues of 
the "wee deoch-an-Doris." 

Then there is that young scamp, the "saf t- 
est o' the Family," with all his impish tricks 
to take advantage of his title. He may be 
an idle young scrapegrace, but how he seems 
to lick his lips over the memory of his devil- 
ments and then blinks at you over his big 
nose, as if he were as innocent as a lamb, 
so that you applaud his evil deeds and make 
yourself accessory after the fact. 

But the song of songs, with which Harry 
Lauder never fails to win every heart in his 
audience and which he is never excused, is 
"I lo'e a lassie." He comes forward, this 
solid, rather heavy- featured peasant, in his 
kilt and plaid and bonnet, carrying a stick, 



CHARACTER STUDY 53 

all coils and convolutions. But he is not 
grotesque. There are a strength and hon- 
esty about him, and a rugged simplicity of 
manner. He begins to tell us, confidentially, 
just because we look like good fellows that 
he can talk to and he is bubbling over with 
the joy of it. His face lights up with a 
wide embracing smile ; the words come, halt- 
ing and cautious at first, for he is not going 
to tell us if we laugh. But soon he is pour- 
ing out his whole heart, the words coming 
softly, yet still slowly, as if there were a joy 
in their utterance which he was loath to 
hurry. He has told us his secret, and now 
he runs back to see if "she" is approaching. 
And how light and sure and poised is that 
thickset frame when it is in motion! How 
springy the step as he hurries forward to 
tell us behind his hand that "she's comin'!" 
As she trips in, his whole body is inflated 
and glowing with pride ; and, indicating with 
a wag of his head, he tells us "that's her." 
It is such a fervent, loyal ecstasy, and the 
honest fellow is so sure that we sympathize 



54 .VAUDEVILLE 

and just a little envy him, that we are filled 
with goodwill for him and his Scotch Blue- 
bell. 

He is so human and simple that we forget 
the art of it. What has he done? There 
was no supreme effort in it, no extraordi- 
nary vocal effects. He only just sang a lit- 
tle ballad in such a way as to make us for- 
get we were one of a crowded audience of 
miscellaneous individualities and set us 
thinking of a stretch of heather-covered hill- 
side and the throbbing heart of a man. 

I have not said anything about his 
dancing, and yet those heavy-looking limbs 
can flicker and jig and fling with the light- 
ness and poise of a premiere danseuse. And 
always the dance belongs to the character 
he is representing — perhaps that is why I 
didn't mention it before. 

If you doubt the fact that Harry Lauder 
is an artist, take up any of his songs and 
in cold blood read it through and try to im- 
agine it sung by a "fairly good" comedian. 
There is a very slight thread of idea strung 




MRS. BROWN POTTER 



CHARACTER STUDY 55 

together as warp and it is the singer him- 
self who supplies the woof which binds the 
whole into the fabric which he spreads for 
our delight. 

There are, of course, many character 
comedians, portraying in burlesque or gross- 
ly caricatured sketches this or that type. But 
there are not many who create an actual hu- 
man character as do these two, Albert Che- 
valier and Harry Lauder. There are in 
my memory, however, at least two clean-cut 
comedy characters portrayed by Lilian 
Shaw, strongly contrasted and vividly por- 
trayed. 

The first was a slim, chic Parisienne, 
dressed quietly but very much a la mode; 
not a grisette and not quite an aristocrat. 
For she had not the demureness of the 
French girl who has always been chaper- 
oned. In fact, there was something of the 
hardness of the girl who consciously has 
to look out for herself, knowing that her 
action may provoke comment. A man ac- 
costs her, she turns on him indignant at the 



56 VAUDEVILLE 

outrage. But she shows that she is not taken 
by surprise. In fact, she would have been 
more surprised, if she had escaped atten- 
tion, — she might even have been disappoint- 
ed. But she must make it quite clear that 
she is "Demoiselle tout a fait comme il f aut." 
So she hurls voluble condemnation at the 
offender, and with a toss of the head picks 
her way daintily away from him; not, how- 
ever, without a quick backward dart of the 
eye to be sure that he has lost none of the 
impressiveness of her rebuke. 

The next picture was a tired, bedraggled 
young German mother, struggling with that 
misfit period when the responsibilities of a 
growing family rob her of her youthful 
rights to the fun and frolic and prettiness 
for which she still longs. She comes in with 
her baby carriage. She is conscientiously 
clean and mended and patched in all her be- 
longings, but with no vestige of the comely 
prettiness which doubtless captivated her 
Fritz in the days when she went with him 
to dances. Her hair is flattened down, 




YVETTE GUILBERT 



CHARACTER STUDY 57 

smooth and tight; her shabby, faded shirt- 
waist rather badly ironed ; her shoes, old and 
patched and clumsy. She sits near the baby 
carriage and regrets the old days when she 
used to put on her best clothes and go with 
her Fritz. Now Fritz goes and she stays 
at home and does all the thousand and one 
jobs which her conscientious housewifery im- 
poses on her, just as if she were not the same 
pleasure-loving little soul she had been in 
the days of her courtship. 

It was all admirably realized in the few 
verses of the song and in the tired energy 
with which she fussed over the baby ; and the 
quiet sense of humor was never lost, so that 
the sketch did not stray into any sentimen- 
tality. 

In speaking of character interpretation 
there is one name to which we must not fail 
to pay tribute for wonderful impressionistic 
sketches — that is the name of Yvette Guil- 
bert. It is many years since she flashed 
across our stage dazzling her audience by 
the brilliancy of her work. Her methods 



58 VAUDEVILLE 

were very individual and her sketches had 
something of the character of those of the 
modern cartoonist who suggests instead of 
drawing many of his most vital lines. Her 
personality was always puzzling and elusive. 
She was retiring and yet daring. She was 
chic and yet gauche. She was sophisticated 
to the last degree and yet retained an aloof- 
ness which was impregnable. 

Who that ever saw her in her early days 
can forget the curious impression that her 
first appearance always created. The sur- 
prise, the gasp of disappointment when the 
audience first caught sight of this oddly 
dressed, awkward, lounging figure. That 
Yvette Guilbert, whom every one said was 
so brilliant, so spirituelle? That long- 
limbed, awkward creature who did not know 
what to do with her thin arms? And then, 
suddenly her whole personality was trans- 
formed and became expressive — magnetic. 
Her face showed an ever-changing picture, 
illuminating and interpreting her songs — 
those bitter-gay songs of the life of the un- 






CHARACTER STUDY 59 

derworld of Paris. They were not pretty; 
they were the songs of those who laugh to 
hide even from themselves the despair of 
their own hearts. Some of them were mock- 
ing and impudent, as though the singer sang 
to keep her courage up. Some were care- 
less and ironic. But all of them throbbed 
with life. They might be full of deviltry, 
but they were human and made their lis- 
teners aware of their vitality. 

Later she changed all this. After an ab- 
sence of some years she came back to us 
singing songs, still vital and in touch with 
life, but now it was the life of the French 
peasant, of simple, religious folk who ac- 
cept hardship as God's will. These songs 
were as naive as the others had been sophis- 
ticated. Christmas carols, cradle songs, old 
ballads of the Saints. But into these too 
she breathed the breath of life. And such 
is the power of the soul to mould to its use 
the body, that the long-limbed, keen- faced 
singer of the streets seemed to transform 



60 VAUDEVILLE 

herself into the likeness of the tranquil, 
sturdy peasant. 

In each of her studies she showed that 
wonderful power of the artist to create for 
you not only the actual characters and en- 
vironments of the song itself, but to sug- 
gest the relationship of these to life, to the 
universe — which is the true realism. 

It is in these later songs that she is fol- 
lowing the true bent of her sympathies and 
preferences. Keenly as she analyzed the 
dwellers in the city, it is to the peasant that 
her heart belongs. She interprets their quiet, 
toilsome lives with the same breadth and 
insight as did the great modern Dutch 
painter, Israels, not spending time on the 
representation of minute accessories but in- 
tent on reproducing the human characteris- 
tics and spiritual nature of the originals. 




MAGGIE CLINE 



CHAPTER III 

The Entertainer as a Craftsman 

IN spite of differences of personality or 
of the character they represent for the 
moment, there are certain technical accom- 
plishments which, consciously or instinctive- 
ly, are used by every successful artist. We 
have already spoken of directness and it is 
hardly necessary to do more than mention 
lucidity. The speech, however homely, must 
be absolutely clear and unobscured. It must 
be equally easy to hear and understand. 
And the action must be just as concise. 

There is another quality, however, of 
which we become conscious only b^ degrees. 
It is the feeling for rhythm — the sense which 
indicates the exact timing and phrasing and 
accent which are most expressive. The 
rhythms vary; some performers command a 
61 



62 VAUDEVILLE 

large range of them while some employ only 
a few. With some the rhythm is very 
marked. One can feel distinctly the phras- 
ing in speech and action. The pause — the 
movement of the head or hand — the pacing 
across the stage — we can feel how they are 
timed and accented. This is especially the 
case with some of the older school of per- 
formers. But it is no less true of the 
younger, though the effect is less marked; 
for it is an essential of what is known as the 
ability to "get it over." 

Let us review, then, some of the work of 
one whose reign as a Vaudeville favorite, 
though long, shows as yet no sign of wan- 
ing, and who is past mistress of this art — 
Maggie Cline. 

Of course when any one says "Maggie 
Cline," everyone else answers "Throw him 
down, McClusky." And certainly that great 
and glorious Irish shindy is memorable for 
its vigor, thoroughness and the rapturous 
joy of the participants. I never did know 
what it was all about, but would it be the 



THE ENTERTAINER 63 

genuine article if I did? However, I know 
that there was a broth of a boy in it who 
was the cause of himself and everyone else 
having the time of their lives ; that someone 
was thrown down and among the lot of them 
they made more noise than was ever before 
heard outside of Donnybrook Fair. It 
seems to take every available stage hand to 
help to make that noise, and "then some." 
And, when the whole-souled, high-spirited 
daughter of Erin who was the prime insti- 
gator of the shindy brings them all out on 
to the stage to acknowledge the applause, 
she treats them as her sons and brothers and 
cousins and blarneys and chaffs them with- 
out mercy, to the huge delight of the audi- 
ence and her own chuckling amusement. 

But this vigorous, rollicking jollity is not 
the only notable quality of Maggie Cline's 
work. Let me call your attention to the 
clean-cut gestures, conveying the greatest 
possible expression with the least possible 
exertion; and also to the wonderful timing 
of these gestures, so that with perfect natu- 



64 VAUDEVILLE 

ralness they group themselves into phrases, 
as it were, culminating in an emphasis as 
rhythmically adjusted as the accented word 
in a line of poetry. 

This is apparent even in the first stepping 
onto the stage. They know their business 
so well, these old timers. The implements of 
their craft are so absolutely under their con- 
trol that they lose not a single moment in 
bringing them into play. One might almost 
say that they begin to influence their audi- 
ence even before they appear on the stage, 
and certainly with the first step from the 
wings the sympathetic current is started. 

So Maggie Cline walks on, firm-footed, 
leisurely, composed. Then she looks out to 
her audience and smiles, cheerful, friendly 
and familiar; advances a few steps; then 
stands, the smile embracing the whole au- 
dience and establishing a kinship with it. 
We know that we are going to like her and 
we feel sure that she likes us. 

The song begins. We hope it is one of 
the Irish ditties in which she is so truly her- 



THE ENTERTAINER 65 

self, full of unctuous humor and rollick- 
ing fun, with eyes a-twinkle at the droll 
turns and twists of her story, not finically 
fine, but honest, frank and generous. There 
is no attempt at smartness in her songs. 
They deal with plain folk and are expressed 
in plain words. But watch the exactness of 
the gesture which suggests rather than at- 
tempts to depict: listen to the modulation 
of the voice which allows the imagination 
to carry it to a force and intensity not ac- 
tually attempted. With the squaring of an 
elbow and the raising of one shoulder she 
sketches for you in a momentary gesture 
the Spanish dancer, just as with the fling of 
a cloak and the uptilt of the chin she por- 
trays the haughty matador. And both are 
given just the right emphasis and timed to 
the right moment to keep their place in the 
rhythm of the song, while still providing the 
piquancy of a surprise. 

Then, once in a while, at a climax she will 
let go of all restraint and gesture. Voice 
and action are allowed their full vigor. The 



66 VAUDEVILLE 

result is dynamic and she seems to glory in 
it. But these unrestrained moments serve 
as a contrast, not a contradiction, to her more 
ordered efforts. It is as though she said, 
"we are all friends here together and this 
is just a burst of natural high spirits, quite 
spontaneous." But, even in these, she knows 
how to time them so that they shall never 
seem forced or too long continued. It is 
evidently inborn, this rhythmic sense, as 
well as trained by years of experience, but 
it makes all the difference between effective- 
ness and ineffectiveness. 

Another favorite of an older generation, 
Fay Templeton, was not in her early days, 
strictly speaking, of the Vaudeville stage. 
But I am going to claim her for Vaudeville, 
since she has made a successful appearance 
in this field and because she most admirably 
illustrates the charm of this quality of 
rhythm. 

From the moment of her entrance every 
action falls into its allotted place, ruled by 




LILLIAN RUSSELL 



/ 



THE ENTERTAINER 67 

this unfailing sense of rhythm. The music 
is gay, but her entrance is nonchalant. As 
we see her to-day, her figure does not lend 
itself to the exploitation of the modern style 
of sheath gown, so very wisely she does not 
count on the latest move as an asset. In 
fact, she completely defies all laws of "the 
latest thing," and makes her appearance in 
garments ample and flowing, but somehow 
contriving to look very chic. 

She has come well onto the stage before 
she seems to be aware of the applause which 
greets her. Then her eyes are raised in 
radiant response, so happy is she that the 
audience thus welcomes her. A few steps 
more; then she stops, apparently at ran- 
dom, but really the whole entrance from the 
first appearance, from the smile to the stop, 
have completed a perfect phrase. It is not 
stepped, one, two, one, two, in time to the 
music, but the phrase harmonizes with it in 
a way more subtle and far more attractive. 

And then she sings : really and truly sings. 
For Fay Templeton has the trained and de- 



68 VAUDEVILLE 

veloped voice of a singer. So her songs are 
not talked or shouted, nor produced in that 
extraordinary manner which some peculiar 
tradition has fastened on to Vaudeville. Do 
you enjoy ragtime? Her songs, it is true, 
are not ragtime, but watch her movements, 
even the most ordinary flutter of her hand- 
kerchief and you can get from it all the joy 
of syncopated accent, the accent which goes 
not with the beat but in a recognized rela- 
tion to it. 

The actual measure of her songs is apt to 
be simple and well accentuated — a waltz or 
a two-step. And against this background 
her rhythmic movement and gesture form 
a sort of embroidery. I do not say that this 
is consciously premeditated or counted out; 
but the rhythmic sense of the artist is de- 
veloped to such a degree that even the small- 
est detail, the turn of the head, the glance 
of the eyes, is adjusted in its time and em- 
phasis in relation to the whole. Meanwhile, 
the seemingly impromptu asides : the taking 
of the powder-puff from its hidden recepta- 



THE ENTERTAINER 69 

cle in the parasol handle, the placing or re- 
moving of the monocle — these are done with 
a conscious art and to a nicety of effective- 
ness which makes them delightful. 

But there is something more than tech- 
nique to admire in Fay Templeton's art. 
She can, from very simple material, present 
to us a little human drama made up of a 
mixture of drollery, pathos and sentiment. 
See her in "So long Mary," dressed in a 
plain, sensible walking-suit, such as any busi- 
ness woman might wear, brightened up with 
a red tie and hat ribbon. Her plump figure 
radiates good-nature, but her face has a 
cheerfulness just a little too determined and 
steadfast to be natural. You feel convinced, 
somehow, that behind that smile there is a 
heart as heavy as the clumsy-looking suit- 
case she is carrying. Yes, she is going away, 
and she is not so happy about it as she would 
have you think. And presently six pretty, 
slender young girls file in, their dresses an 
elegant counterpart of Mary's plain one. 
They show quite considerable regret at part- 



70 VAUDEVILLE 

ing with their older companion and adjure 
her "Don't forget to come back home," flick- 
ing away a regretful tear as they say it. 
Then they file out and their place is taken by 
six youths who also show a kindly sorrow 
at parting with this good-natured comrade. 
But, after all, the main interest of the young 
fellows is in the six elegantly dressed girls, 
and they follow in their train, leaving Mary 
to struggle with her burdens as best she 
may. When next we see them each one has 
linked himself to one or other of the slender 
young girls and in spite of their kind words 
Mary is left to trudge alone, still dragging 
the heavy suitcase and keeping a brave face, 
grateful for their lightly proffered sym- 
pathy. 

There is no sigh of self-pity, no look of 
envy at the young people so engrossed in 
themselves, but one feels the pathos of it 
all the same. So when at last a kindly- faced, 
greyhaired fellow appears and assumes all 
Mary's burdens and tucks her hand under 
his arm the burst of applause is a demon- 




MARSHALL MONTGOMERY 



THE ENTERTAINER 71 

stration of genuine relief. We had watched 
the creation of a charming little genre pic- 
ture that did not need the gush of sentimen- 
tality which followed. But audiences some- 
times like to smell the orange blossom and 
hear "they lived happy ever after." It is 
their tribute to the obvious. 

And now I am going to speak of a per- 
formance of quite a different character, the 
effectiveness of which, however, is largely 
dominated by this same quality, used with 
so much authority by these other two artists 
— the quality of rhythm. 

Marshal Montgomery is a ventriloquist 
who has the traditional grotesque doll and 
goes through much of the quick question 
and answer that is the stock in trade of his 
craft. But he introduces a feature which 
seems to pass beyond the bounds of pos- 
sibility in that, as he makes his figure talk, 
volubly, distinctly and continuously, he 
lights for himself a cigarette, smokes it, 
leisurely puffing, pours himself out a drink 



72 VAUDEVILLE 

and unhurriedly imbibes it, and eats, I think, 
an apple. And the voice of the figure goes 
on with no apparent regard for what its 
actual producer is doing. 

Now apart from the technicalities of voice 
production necessary for ventriloquism, 
which I do not pretend to understand, I be- 
came, as I watched this performance, sud- 
denly conscious of another technical medium 
which the performer employs. He has an 
absolute command of a dual rhythm, one of 
which he uses for the figure and the other 
for his own actions. Much of the illusion 
is gained by the skill with which he keeps 
these two rhythms apart and yet manages 
them so that the pause in one shall coincide 
with the accent of the other. The rhythm 
for the doll is jerky and staccato, rude and 
uncouth, but quite individual. Indeed, it 
materially helps to invest the creature with 
a sort of character of its own. That of the 
manipulator is smooth, leisurely, suave and 
self-assured. The movement of the hand 
which pours the drink or lights the cigarette 



THE ENTERTAINER 73 

is steady and unhurried, while the gestures 
of the doll are flurried and emphatic. But 
ever and anon during a pause in the chatter- 
ing monologue of the doll the ventriloquist, 
using for his own action a different rhythm, 
takes the required sip or puff. But, because 
the sip or puff is only part of the whole ac- 
tion, which consists in putting the article to 
the lips and afterward placing it on the ta- 
ble, whereas the pause in the doll's mono- 
logue marks the end of a phrase, the coinci- 
dence of the two escapes detection. The 
exact and conscious timing of the action so 
as to cause no apparent break in the volu- 
bility of the doll's voice is a wonder and de- 
light to watch. This effective use of rhythm, 
a new one to me, so far from lessening my 
appreciation of the cleverness of the illusion, 
increases it a hundredfold. 

Though the rhythmic feeling in the tech- 
nique of the players of the older genera- 
tion is more marked and its use more con- 
scious, it is quite as much an element in the 
success of the modern style in spite of the 



74 VAUDEVILLE 

assumption of spontaniety. Take, for in- 
stance, the songs of Ethel Green. Her man- 
ner seems quite unpremeditated, even a little 
tentative and hesitating, as if not quite sure 
of her relations with her audience. It is 
not that she is at all uncertain of the humor 
of her song, but perhaps these people will 
not see it. When they do and signify their 
appreciation, she dimples and smiles at them, 
so glad to have come to a perfect under- 
standing. Don't you feel a sort of rhythm 
in those softly deprecating glances, and then 
the gradual dimpling friendliness and finally 
the arch sauciness of the toss of the head 
with which her last line is given? There is 
a nicely maintained balance which works 
up to a strongly felt moment when the claim 
of the artist is established with her audi- 
ence. 

Gertrude Barnes, in her story-tel^ng 
songs, given with such perfect simplicity, 
knows well how to make her points with no 
apparent effort. But the simplicity is really 
the effect of exact phrasing. How effec- 




ETHEL GREEN 



THE ENTERTAINER 75 

tively she uses her rag-time syncopations in 
"Row, row, row." The narrative patters 
along with no very marked beat but just a 
subtle swing at the back of it which makes 
it haunting and melodious. That is the way 
with much of the modern rhythm. The reg- 
ular beat is overlaid with a swing which con- 
tradicts it but does not lose sight of it. Then 
back it slips into strongly accented throbs 
for a space, to be sure that we shall not 
overlook the fact that, however impromptu 
and unmeasured the flow may seem, to be 
effective it must be regulated by some 
rhythmic sense. 



CHAPTER IV 

Music and Near-music 

WE, of the Vaudeville Audience, all 
love music. Individually we may- 
differ as to what particular variety of noise 
we honor with the name of music, but our 
own brand we, each, love fervently. 

In Vaudeville we are offered a gorgeous 
variety of brands: from melody extracted 
from the unwilling material of xylophones 
and musical glasses through the varying of- 
ferings of singers and instrumentalists, both 
comic and serious, to the performance of 
high class chamber-music or the singing of 
an operatic diva. 

For the purposes of this chapter we will 
eliminate the singers who use the song sim- 
ply as a medium to get over to the audience 
some amusing patter. We have looked at 
76 




SOPHYE BARNARD 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 77 

some of these in other chapters and our 
Vaudeville sense will not allow us to give 
too much attention to any one form of 
amusement. So now let us listen to music as 
music. 

Let it be admitted that the Vaudeville 
house is not the place in which the musical 
connoisseur looks for music of the highest 
rank. There is no aim to compete with the 
Philharmonic Society or the Boston Sym- 
phony Orchestra. But for all that there are 
some good music and fine musicians and no 
lack of appreciation for them. Perhaps it 
is not to be denied that the strange and curi- 
ous are as highly favored as the artistic ; and 
a violinist may excite as much applause by 
playing "Suwanee River" on one string as 
by the most exquisite rendering of a violin 
Fantasia by Brahms. But there are always 
some in the audience who are grateful for 
the best, even if they are not so noisy in their 
acknowledgment of it. There has been from 
time to time a large array of talent, mu- 
sicians of repute, both instrumentalists and 



78 VAUDEVILLE 

singers, who have found their way on to the 
Vaudeville stage for a longer or shorter 
period. 

The stars of Musical Comedy and Light 
Opera drift with apparent indifference from 
one sphere to the other and sooner or later 
they are likely to be heard in Vaudeville. 
In the heyday of her vocal triumphs Lillian 
Russell sang for a short time in Vaudeville, 
where her crisp, well-assured individuality 
and her familiarity with the technique of 
her craft, quite apart from her well adver- 
tised beauty, would always make her wel- 
come. 

Quite recently we have heard such ac- 
knowledged singers of note as Lulu Glaser, 
whose popularity in Vaudeville is no less 
than in Musical Comedy; Grace La Rue; 
Ina Claire, fresh from her triumphs in "The 
Quaker Girl"; Kitty Gordon, with her lus- 
cious beauty and limpid voice and gowns of 
startling magnificence; Laura Guerite in a 
miniature musical comedy, specially written 
for her; Jefferson d'Angelis, cultivator of 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 79 

abundant crops of laughter as well as singer 
of ability, and many more beside. 

But while these luminaries flash across the 
horizon from time to time like splendid com- 
ets the constellation of Vaudeville numbers 
stars of its own which belong to it by right. 
There is "The East side Caruso," a young 
Italian whose voice has tones which are not 
unlike those of the famous tenor; while his 
ingenuous gratification at the favor he wins 
is much more charming in its naivete than 
the sophistication of the better known ar- 
tist. 

Jose Collins is a Vaudeville prima-donna 
who knows the art of voice-production and 
can render her songs with telling effect. She 
has dramatic feeling too and identifies her- 
self with their sentiment in the way which 
her audience looks for. She can melt easily 
and naturally from one to another of the 
pictorial poses that have been arranged to 
accompany her songs. Also, she wears mag- 
nificent gowns. 

Another favorite is Eunice Vance, who 



80 VAUDEVILLE 

sings her songs with real musical feeling, 
while not forgetting the popular appeal 
which her audience craves. 

There is, too, some delightful singing, in- 
cluded in a little drama which presents a 
real human problem. It is enacted by So- 
phye Barnard, Lou Anger and Company 
and is entitled, "The Song of the Heart." 
It introduces to us a young prima-donna 
about to make her debut in the opera of 
"Thais." Her husband and family, although 
opposed to her career, are to witness her 
triumph from a box. But just as she is 
prepared to make her first entrance the hus- 
band appears, imploring her to come with 
him to their child who lies at the point of 
death and is calling for her. The impres- 
ario pleads with her. He has helped her 
through the arduous years of study and begs 
her not to abandon her purpose now that 
its achievement is within her grasp. The 
overture has already begun and the dis- 
tracted woman is hurried on to the stage. 
She has sung the first part and returned to 




LULU GLASER 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 81 

her dressing-room to sing the aria offstage 
before she realizes the agony of her position, 
but as she again comes before the public her 
distress unnerves her. She falters, hesitates, 
her voice breaks and she is unable to pro- 
ceed. Hisses and hoots from the audience 
drive her from the stage. Horrified at the 
cruelty and heartlessness of the public she 
throws herself into her husband's arms, im- 
ploring him to take her back to their child 
and determining to devote herself to them 
henceforth. 

Sophy e Barnard has made a great impres- 
sion not only with her rendering of the mu- 
sic but also with her acting of the part of 
the heroine. But it is the singing which 
gives to the performance its distinction and 
which remains in the memory as especially 
enjoyable. 

Meanwhile, besides the instrumentalists 
who delight us with the one instrument of 
their choice we have versatile artists who 
play with equal facility any instrument from 
violin to saxophone. There is Charles F. 



82 VAUDEVILLE 

Seamon, who seems to be equally familiar 
with every instrument one can name. Wood, 
brass, strings, — so long as it is an instru- 
ment of music he is its master. Of each he 
seems to be not only the facile manipulator, 
but the diviner of its special capability of 
expression and to be able to wring from it its 
special quality of vibrant tone. 

Not only the acknowledged instruments 
of the orchestra have their exponents but 
we have wizards who wring sweetness from 
accordions, ocarinas or other weird instru- 
ments. Unnumbered effects are obtained 
from the piano by performers who play a 
different melody with each hand, or change 
the key every few bars or play complicated 
settings using one hand only. Or "Violin- 
sky" executes for us the most complicated of 
exercises on the violin, winding up with a 
piano-cello duet which he performs alone. 
The bow of the 'cello is strapped to his right 
knee while the right hand manipulates the 
strings as he plays the air on it. The left 
hand, meanwhile, plays on the piano an elab- 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 83 

orate accompaniment. Of course we do not 
look for a great deal of soul in such per- 
formances, the exhibition is much more a 
thing of skill and ingenuity. 

There are quartettes and sextettes that 
play with considerable charm. And because 
it is necessary to diversify even these varied 
offerings we find them presenting them- 
selves in fanciful guises, such as gypsies, 
Spanish peasants and toreadors; or weav- 
ing a little pictorial setting around their mu- 
sic as in the representation of the Colonial 
mansion with its guests keeping up the old 
tradition of Hallowe'en, whereby the first 
to speak must blow the Fairy Horn. 

I call to mind a group of clever instru- 
mentalists who after playing cornets, trom- 
bones and other better known instruments 
gave an excellent performance on some huge, 
strange-looking tubas, during which all the 
lights in the house were extinguished except 
rings of electric light around the mouths 
of their instruments. There was something 
very uncanny in those rings of light emit- 



84 VAUDEVILLE 

ting deep, full-diapasoned tones, seemingly 
of their own volition, for the performers 
were quite invisible. 

I don't know that this evident necessity 
for something over and above the music 
pleases me. It seems to betoken an inability 
on the part of the audience to give itself 
sympathetically to the deeper enjoyment of 
music and smacks too much of mere rest- 
less craving for novelty. It would seem as 
if the audience will take no step toward the 
entertainer but must not only be entertained 
but coaxed into allowing itself to be en- 
tertained. In the old days when the singer 
sat with the audience and was not above 
sharing a mug of beer with an ardent ad- 
mirer he might be asked for this or that fa- 
vorite ditty and the audience joined in the 
chorus. But it seems that this divorce which 
has put the footlights permanently between 
them has cut so deep as to paralyze the de- 
sire of the audience to cooperate even men- 
tally with the performer. 

And so the audience is losing the full en- 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 85 

joyment of music because it insists on hav- 
ing it combined with some more obvious 
form of amusement. The beauty of a song 
well sung is not really enhanced by being 
combined with feats of horsemanship nor 
are we really receiving increased pleasure by 
mixing the two. There is much to be de- 
sired in the sympathetic appreciation of an 
audience that demands the combination. It 
is not doing its share. 

Therein lies the trouble. The audience is 
inclined to become inert and to rely on the 
performer not only for "delight" but for 
the creation of the mood in which to ac- 
cept it. 

As for joining in a chorus it is seldom that 
the audience can be induced to make more 
than a very half-hearted attempt at it. 
Sometimes, as was very cleverly done by 
Emma Cams, a singer is "planted" in a re- 
mote part of the house who takes up the 
strain, not too noticeably at first, but just 
enough to encourage others to join. Grad- 
ually this one trained voice overtops all the 



86 VAUDEVILLE 

rest, who are usually doing little more than 
hum shamefacedly at best, and then stop to 
listen to him until he is left singing alone. 
Of course, with an experienced actress like 
Miss Carus on the stage, who knows how 
to work up the interest by the first expres- 
sion of pleased surprise, followed by the 
questioning look, the effort to locate the 
singer, then the confirming approval and 
at last the congratulatory delight, this is 
very effective. But, after all, this is only 
one more effort to capture the audience by 
novelty and does not really make any de- 
mand on their cooperation. 

But still, as I have said before, the Vaude- 
ville audience does love music, provided it 
happens to be of its own peculiar brand. 
Witness its devotion to the Male Quartette. 
This particular brand flourishes perpetually 
in its bald simplicity. And "flourishes" 
seems a peculiarly appropriate word. For, 
though I have not been able to substanti- 
ate it as a scientific fact, it would seem that 
Quartette singing has a magical effect in 




CHARLES F. SEAMON 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 87 

increasing the singer's girth, especially 
toward what might be called the equatorial 
zone. Occasionally a Quartette will com- 
prise one thin singer and he is the basso pro- 
fondo. For the rest, the higher the voice 
the greater the circumference. And Oh! 
the oozing sentimentality of these fat men! 
"If you should go away" they will "kneel 
down and pray." If they do, it seems only 
too probable that a derrick would have to 
be rigged in order to raise them to their 
feet again. Those well padded knees, how- 
ever, show no signs of abrasions on cold, 
hard floors. Still, in mellifluous numbers, 
they regret that they "lost the angel that 
guides" them when they "lost you!" It is 
sad, it is heart-breaking! but it does not 
seem to have worried them to the extent of 
growing thin about it. Why should they, 
when they can sing and grow fat? 

Perhaps I do them injustice in doubting 
their agility. Anyhow, they always run 
quite quickly off the stage. That is one 
of the regulations, — Run off — Walk on. 



88 VAUDEVILLE 

Perhaps they would lose breath if they ran 
on, but I should like to see it tried just 
once. Perhaps it would break some long 
cherished tradition and things would never 
be the same again. 

Many of these Quartettes sing sonorous- 
ly, but others sing stentoriously. I remem- 
ber one three hundred pound tenor with 
a voice that could subdue a boiler factory in 
full blast, standing with his hands hardly 
meeting across his waistcoat, bawling at us 
"As a broken heart needs gladness, as the 
flow-ers nee-ee-eed the deuw, as a ba-by 
needs its mo-otherrrr — That's how I — need 
yeou!" 

He had quite a wonderful voice. The 
other three singers had been specially en- 
gaged to cope with it and they did their 
best. But it got away from them and 
drowned them out and, though they were 
red in the face with their exertions, they 
barely escaped from the flood of it. 

But there are many Quartettes with which 
it is quality not quantity that is the ulti- 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 89 

mate aim and, when this is the case, the 
offering is one of the most delightful turns 
that appear on the programme. 

Every now and then we find on our pro- 
gramme an item of rare musical distinction. 
Such is the performance of Theodore Ben- 
dix's ensemble players. This Quartette of 
players contrives very happily to give us 
real music while not entirely ignoring that 
personal appeal which their audience craves. 
Their playing is manifestly for the audi- 
ence. There is none of the aloofness and 
impersonality that marks the high gods of 
Olympus. The players do not disdain to 
look into the faces of their audience and 
gain fresh inspiration as they see the an- 
swering response to the throb of the ele- 
mental stir of their music. They give free 
play to the temperament and abandon with 
which the response fills them. Listen to the 
playing of Sarasate's Gypsy Fantasy, by 
Michael Bernstein and give yourself up to 
the pulsing beat of life which stirs through 
the out-of-door world. Feel your blood 



90 VAUDEVILLE 

tingle with the response to the rise of the 
sap in springtime, and the song of the first 
robin and the sound of the wind in the tree- 
tops and the bursting of buds on the bough 
and all the sweet sounds of nature which 
beckon to us from the ages, when our tribe 
wandered the long road, following the pat- 
tern of its people and slept beneath the can- 
opy of stars. 

Such organizations, too, as the Russian 
Balalaika Orchestra, are a genuine pleasure 
from a purely musical standpoint. They 
feed the imagination instead of stunting it, 
and by the charm of their rendering of their 
characteristic music call up pictures to the 
mind, fraught with an atmosphere strange 
and convincing. Hear them play the folk 
song of the Volga boatmen. At first it is 
monotonous and heavy, timed to their labori- 
ous breathing as they pull their long strokes 
against the stream. Then it swells into the 
passionate cry of yearning for some better 
lot, some longed-for rest from labor. Then 
once again it settles down into the monoto- 




EUNICE VANCE 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 91 

nous dirge-like chant, dying away in the far 
distance as the boat disappears up the misty 
river. 

These are the things which weave the real 
spell of music and lift us for the moment 
above the commonplace and personal. But 
they call for a cooperation on the part of 
the imagination of the hearer. And if a 
touch of the dramatic in the bearing of the 
performers can awaken that imagination, 
we need have no quarrel with it. But some- 
times this dramatic bearing usurps the 
throne which should be occupied by the mu- 
sic itself and we find our audience intent 
on the peculiarities of the performer instead 
of yielding themselves to the sway of his 
music. So, when Francesco Creatore's or- 
chestra plays, fully one-half of his audience 
are absorbed in watching the antics and ec- 
centricities of the conductor. The wild flap 
of hair over his forehead, which, as he waves 
his head in crazy excitement, threatens to 
blind him — the crouching grasp with which 
he seems to be plucking a melody from the 



92 VAUDEVILLE 

atmosphere, or the defiant rage with which 
he flings it at the performers — the beckon- 
ing, the nodding and all the capers in which 
he indulges, become so engrossing that the 
actual music passes unheeded. It is true 
that he can stimulate his audience to a 
thrilled enthusiasm; yet the spell is not that 
of music but of his own excitable, effer- 
vescent personality. 

And while we are speaking of the music 
we must not forget the Vaudeville orches- 
tra which does such gallant work in aug- 
menting our delight in each and every one 
of the many turns. It is no light responsi- 
bility that rests on the head of the leader of 
a Vaudeville orchestra and his company of 
musicians. They can mar if they cannot 
actually make a turn successful. Notwith- 
standing a bill that changes completely at 
least once a week, the leader must be al- 
ways perfectly familiar with entrances, ex- 
its, cues and effects desired by each indi- 
vidual performer. Besides playing for all 
the song and dances with their special pe- 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 93 

culiarities of pause or acceleration of the 
time, supplying accompaniment for instru- 
mentalists, introducing each turn and play- 
ing overture and exit march there are many 
other numbers which look to the orchestra 
for assistance. 

There is the "thrilly" music for the sen- 
sational play; the specially accentuated ac- 
companiments to animal acts. Then the 
acrobats, trapeze and wire acts and other 
daring feats must have their own particular 
variety of accompaniment, and the long 
whirring roll of the drum with its clash of 
cymbals to mark exactly the climax of some 
notable feature, and the sudden silence, as 
though the orchestra itself were too amazed 
to play for the hair-raising episode which 
caps the whole performance. Each and 
every one of these must be timed to the ex- 
act second or the effect will be spoiled. 
Moreover, the leader of the orchestra will 
often be expected to join in some dialogue 
with the comedian or to interrupt some spe- 
cialty, or "fill in," in one way or another, in 



94 VAUDEVILLE 

the many efforts to bring actor and audi- 
ence into personal relation. 

And — by no means the least of his re- 
quirements — the leader of the orchestra 
must not allow himself the indulgence of 
looking bored. He may be wearied of hear- 
ing the same joke repeated twelve times in 
a week, the same song with the same em- 
phasis occurring twelve times, the same sur- 
prise which he has seen eleven times before, 
but his face must not betray him. The first 
violinist or even the drummer, though a per- 
son of tremendous importance, may look as 
they feel. I have even seen them yawn dis- 
creetly, but the leader must keep up a sem- 
blance of geniality even if inwardly bore- 
dom reigns supreme. 

His is the position of the commanding 
officer who marshals the forces in battle, 
keeping the ranks in line and filling up the 
gaps made by those who fall. He must ob- 
serve a tradition like that of the British 
army, that though the rank and file may lie 
down under cover, the commanding officer 



MUSIC AND NEAR-MUSIC 95 

must remain in full view, bearing the brunt 
of the enemies' fire with unflinching mien, 
regardless of praise or blame. We are his 
debtors, we of the sheltered onlookers who 
may leave the field, if so inclined, without 
a spot on our honor. Here is our salute to 
him and the brave battalion under his com- 
mand. We dare not refuse it, for have I 
not said already that we, of the Vaudeville 
audience, all love music? 



CHAPTER V 

The Lure of the Dance 

THE modern revival of the love of 
dancing may be said to have shown its 
first tentative blossoming in this country 
when, to the wonder and delight of all lov- 
ers of the beautiful, Ruth St. Denis made 
her first appearance on the Vaudeville stage 
in her Temple Dance of Rhadda. She crept 
in unheralded, unknown, and it was only by 
degrees that it was rumored that something 
new in the world of art was being revealed. 
For so entirely was her conception that of 
an artist, so thoroughly had she absorbed 
the mystical atmosphere of Oriental lore and 
saturated her presentation in it; moreover, 
so impersonal and abstract was her perform- 
ance that it became something more than 
mere amusement and claimed a place in the 
category of art. 

96 




GERTRUDE HOFFMAN' 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 97 

Not, however, that there was ever any 
lack of dancers on the Vaudeville stage, but 
the interest in their work was not very vital, 
except on occasions when the appearance of 
such stars as Carmencita fanned to a brief 
glow the flame of popular enthusiasm. The 
reign of the waltz, as demonstrated by 
Letty Lind and Sylvia Grey, had lan- 
guished. The old fervor of the buck and 
wing dancers had become mechanical and 
sophisticated and the ragtime syncopation 
of the negro music had not yet inspired any 
more individual expression than the merest 
imitation of negro antics, hardly worthy to 
be called dances. Such entertainers as still 
relied on dancing as their medium of expres- 
sion received small encouragement, so that 
with few exceptions they attempted little 
more than a display of agility and technical 
accomplishment. 

But the appearance of Ruth St. Denis, a 
native born American who evolved her art, 
expressive as it is of the spirit of the Orient, 
in her own country, was followed by the ar- 



98 VAUDEVILLE 

rival first of Isadora Duncan, an American, 
it is true, but one who had developed her 
art in the stimulating atmosphere of Ger- 
many. A little later came the two com- 
panies of Russian dancers with their finished 
technique of expressional interpretation, and 
by this time the claims of the dance had 
awakened enthusiastic response on all hands, 
and from being the Cinderella of the arts 
it has become the admired and feted pride 
of popular approval. 

Ruth St. Denis, however, remains in a 
class by herself. No other dancer is at- 
tempting to do just the same thing that 
she does so well. Some of her presenta- 
tions are less dances than a series of poses 
of wonderful expressiveness. But the sen- 
sitive beauty of her pictorial effects, the ex- 
quisite refinements of suggestion which she 
imparts to the detail and the atmosphere 
that she thus creates, the result of minute 
and sympathetic study, have not been ri- 
valled by any other artist on our stage. The 
great Russian ballets are the refinement by 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 99 

one artist on the work of another and great 
masters are proud to associate in the work- 
ing 1 out of their elaborate creation. And 
back of them all is a tradition to guide not 
only the performers but also the audience. 
But Ruth St. Denis had to create her own 
traditions, to find and train all her assist- 
ants, to amalgamate the work of her musi- 
cians and scene painters and incorporate 
their work with hers into a whole. 

When first I heard that the subject of 
her latest series of dances was to be Japa- 
nese I was a little dubious. Had not the 
Japanese motive been somewhat overdone? 
But when I saw their presentation I re- 
alized that as yet we have but touched the 
border of poetic suggestion to be gathered 
from that land of poetry and flowers. 

Her appearance in the street scene was 
not at all that of the conventional "lady on 
the fan," but had the boldly patterned re- 
finement of the old Japanese prints, with 
their flowing lines and richly sombre color- 
ing. 



100 VAUDEVILLE 

How dashing and vigorous, with its free, 
lithe strides and well poised arms was the 
spear exercise of the Samurai maiden, and 
how widely different to the usual concep- 
tion of the Japanese woman. Here was no 
timidity or restraint but breezy, joyous ex- 
ercise of boldness and muscle — woman's 
deftness and agility were matched with 
man's strength and skill, and that without 
fear or favor. Did we think of the Japa- 
nese woman as a pretty, submissive toy? 
Here is a refutation of our theories, for this 
maiden will be able to take her own part, if 
physical bravery is ever demanded of her. 

And the picture of the Poetess of the 
Fifteenth Century, — what a true translation 
of the spirit of poetry and what a vision of 
other-worldliness it was. 

The increasing interest taken in the dance 
as a medium of expression has encouraged 
quite a number of dances of symbolic or 
story-telling intent. There is the "Dance of 
the Siren," by Joseph Herbert and Lillian 
Doldsmith, the name of which gives a clue 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 101 

to its rather obvious story. And there is 
an allegorical series enacted by Alice Eis 
and Bert French, entitled "Rouge et Noir," 
which, also, in spite of a sumptuous setting, 
is not very imaginative. It represents the 
worship of the Goddess of Chance by the 
infatuated gambler. We see her half -crazed 
victims pelting her with gold, trying to win 
her smile. One of these she singles out to 
dazzle with her false caresses, which are but 
the restless caprice of a heartless, unfeeling 
coquette. And, of course, when he is drained 
of gold, energy and courage, the fickle dame 
turns her back on him and lavishes her 
smiles elsewhere. 

It is all quite literal, easy of comprehen- 
sion, and makes no demand on its audience 
beyond that of the most ordinary intelli- 
gence. Of course, this is what many people 
prefer and they have a perfect right to their 
preference. But that does not forbid an 
equal right to those who prefer that even 
their amusement shall call into play their 



102 VAUDEVILLE 

powers of imagination and stimulate their 
sense of understanding and beauty. 

Sometimes we have a name but no very- 
coherent story or idea given to these dance- 
offerings, as is the case with Valeska Su- 
ratt's "Black Crepe and Diamonds." The 
name implied little else but the contrast of 
a first scene in black and silver and a second 
in white and spangles, with a loosely thread- 
ed series of dances of the vigorous order 
made popular by the Texas Tommies, with 
a flavoring of the sensuousness of the Rus- 
sians. There was, however, some very clever 
dancing by a tall, slight girl whose individu- 
ality of style suggested that some time she 
might find a medium more suited to her than 
that particular style of dance. 

To Gertrude Hoffmann lovers of the 
dance owe a debt of gratitude for her en- 
terprise in importing to this country the 
Russian dance dramas. Her own flexibility 
of style, which has impelled her to give 
admirable imitations of the great dancers, 
also enabled her to imbue herself with their 




RUTH ST. DENIS 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 103 

spirit and hold her own very creditably 
among this array of highly trained artists. 
Her plastic mobility is always picturesque, 
suggesting ideas, which, however, are never 
quite expressed or grasped. 

Irene and Vernon Castle give a character 
to their dancing in many ways unique. A 
languid energy, a drooping strenuousness, 
contradict themselves in a sort of whimsi- 
cal seriousness. The long, flexible limbs of 
the man, so agile and yet so listless, his face 
of impenetrable indifference and abstrac- 
tion, and the floating gracefulness of the 
lady give an effect of the movements being 
made entirely without effort. Somehow it 
would not surprise you if they left the solid 
ground and floated off, still dancing, into 
space. 

Among the foremost of our dancing 
favorites is Bessie Clayton, the sportive, 
laughing, elfin creature, whose dazzling 
whirl of energy seems to come from an in- 
exhaustible dynamo of youth and merri- 
ment. Her recent dance with a pierrot-like 



104 VAUDEVILLE 

company was a revel of dainty mischief and 
frolic, wooing all to join her in a spirit of 
infectious joy. 

The traditions of the Ballet- School have 
not been allowed entirely to languish. Its 
graceful pirouettes, entrechats and toe- 
dancing have been made by La Petite Ade- 
laide a means of imparting charm and fas- 
cination to her dances. Mile. Dazie, also, 
is one of the few who have preserved vital- 
ity in this older form of dancing. She has 
all the accomplishments of the toe-dancer, 
the pirouettes and airy flights of the clas- 
sic ballet ; but with them the elusive spright- 
liness, piquant and varying, which saves 
them from becoming mechanical or stilted. 
She uses these devices, not for their own 
sake, but as graceful phrases of expression. 

To Bessie McCoy there clings something 
of the old charm of the English dancers of 
Kate Vaughan's school, whose graceful, 
gliding motions alternate with a careless 
fling of limbs, head, arms, even eyes and 
fingers being rhythmically expressive and in 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 105 

harmony with the dancing motions. There 
is no very deep appeal in the expressional 
motive but plenty of simple, naive charm, 
used with unabashed consciousness, frankly 
alluring and not a little saucy. 

While this expressional power in dancing 
is always its most fascinating element, there 
are occasions when its spell is almost hyp- 
notic in its intensity. There is, for instance, 
a Hawaiian who dances with a company 
called Toots Paka Company. He plays 
some sort of guitar, and he dances. And 
the wild, furtive, yearning of that dance! 
You can feel it vibrating, but suppressed 
and held in check, through every fibre of his 
body. It is like the creeping motion of a 
cat, slow, soft, poised, but relentless. A few 
such creeping steps, and then a stealthy 
spring. Then still for a moment, but tense 
and eager. Then creeping again, but faster. 
Then crouched, expectant, alert and again 
a leap. And all the while the man laughs, 
exultant, defiant, with some of the fierce- 
ness, if not the cruelty, that belongs to the 



106 VAUDEVILLE 

cat, while the rippling quiver of anticipa- 
tion quivers through his supple frame. 

A sensuous voluptuousness and wild 
grace throb through the Dances of the Hun- 
garian sisters whose name has been made 
pronounceable by the simple expedient of 
shortening it to "Dolly." They no longer 
appear together but the offering of Rosz- 
cika Dolly and Martin Brown was a strange 
example of exotic temperament, working on 
home-made material. For in the dances 
themselves was nothing very different from 
the offerings of many other Vaudeville 
teams and even of some of our ambitious 
amateurs. But into them the dancer in- 
fused a diablerie, a fire and passion, some- 
thing perf ervid for our cooler natures. Un- 
like most dancers, her expression is rendered 
less in her feet than in the rest of her body. 
Head, eyes especially, arms, bust, and hips 
are used with sensitive expressiveness, but 
the feet seem wooden and unresponsive. 

A study in temperaments, widely diverg- 
ing, might be made by comparing this ex- 




ROSZCIKA DOLLY 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 107 

otic, over-fragrant blossom with the breezy, 
friendly insouciance of the original Texas 
Tommies. With the latter were all the cool 
daring and gay fearlessness and hearty cam- 
araderie which we love to think is charac- 
teristic of the West. Partners are flung or 
whirled or swung at the most daring of tan- 
gents with a good-humored laugh, frank 
and free from the slightest suggestion of 
sensuousness. Comrades and friends, 
though man and woman, they regard each 
other with trust and candor, and dance and 
play with the youthful exuberance of chil- 
dren. 

And, as their whirlings and swingings 
have set a pace which it is not easy to follow, 
we find ingenuity being taxed to find some 
new manner in which they may be presented, 
dancing couples taking all the risks of acro- 
bats to accomplish something which will go 
a little farther than the others. There are 
two couples — Novita and Billy Lyn, and 
Hattie Burks and Fred Lorraine, who have 
come near to exhausting the possibilities in 



108 VAUDEVILLE 

this direction. In the performances of the 
latter the lady floats with her feet in space 
and her arms clasping the neck of her part- 
ner or, for a change, her feet clasp his waist 
while her head is floating at an angle from 
his whirling body. He flings her across his 
shoulder or she falls across his arm in an 
arch to the floor. Or, again, he swings her 
up over his head as though gravitation had 
suspended its laws for their benefit. And 
all this without a loss of the rhythm of the 
dance, but a suggestion of frolicsome aban- 
don and joyousness which unite the spirit of 
the dance to that of a gay romp. 

Melissa Ten Eyck and Wiley Max have 
combined these whirlings with pictorial 
poses, while Arthur Borani and Annie Ne- 
varo, in carrying out their dance, give bur- 
lesque imitations of animals, full of char- 
acter and humorous reality. So variety is 
introduced by one and another, until it is 
hard to say where the dance ends and the 
romp begins. 

In pantomime humor we have the Scare- 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 109 

crow dance of MacMahon, Diamond and 
Clemence, which blends comedy and dance 
very cleverly. The grotesque helplessness of 
the scarecrow, as it suffers itself to be 
dragged about in the wild capers of one of 
the dancers, is so sincerely studied that it is 
some time before you can fully assure your- 
self that it is in truth anything more than 
a bundle of rags. Except for the fact that 
its contortions are always rhythmic, even 
while most grotesque, there is little clue to 
its vitality until it is finally revealed. 

There is a large array of talent among 
those who combine with their dancing songs 
and comedy, as, for instance, Maud Fulton 
and William Rock, or the Farber Girls. 
Neither of these teams relies on dancing, 
though in each case the accomplishment 
would warrant their doing so. But then 
one might say the same thing about their 
comedy. The imitations and burlesques of 
the former couple are very dashing and 
laughable, while one of the Farber girls 
flashes out daring caricatures of dance 



110 VAUDEVILLE 

movements which have all the diablerie of a 
grimace. 

Comedy and dance combine in the well- 
characterized stepping of Jo Smith of the 
Avon Comedy Four. His style is the tradi- 
tional step-dance, allied to the buck-and- 
wing. When once he gets started there 
seems to be no stopping him, and he jigs 
along, back and forth across the stage, ex- 
ecuting one after another of a variety of 
steps, like a specimen of perpetual motion. 
His arms hang loose in the traditional man- 
ner of the step-dancer, but they are by no 
means inexpressive. Some slight alteration 
in the pose of them, and he has imparted a 
new character to his dance; or a slight ges- 
ture, and he has let you into the joke at 
which he has been smiling all the time his 
feet clicked out and shuffled their ever 
changing tattoo. 

It is a wide field, this of step and buck- 
and-wing dancing. Though the genuine ne- 
gro dances are not very often seen now in 
their pristine vigor, a few there are, such as 




BESSIE CLAYTON 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 111 

George Primrose and the team of Miller 
and Lyle, who can give the real old-time 
shuffle and sway and "shake a laig," with all 
the nimbleness and loose- jointed gravity of 
the genuine, old-time roustabout on the levee 
down the river. 

And there are genuine negroes who dance 
and, once they get down to their real na- 
tive methods and forget to imitate the tan- 
gos and onesteps of the white folk, do good 
work. George Cooper and William Robin- 
son are two who have lost none of the "han- 
diness with their feet" that belongs to their 
race. And Phina and her Picks show some 
mighty fine negro dancing. When those 
youngsters get a-going with their droll, 
impish frolics, crouched down, almost to the 
floor, their legs flying this way and that, 
their bodies bounding at every impossible 
angle, and their teeth gleaming in broad, 
mouth-stretching grins, they are no more to 
be quelled than a field of grass-hoppers. 

Just where dancing ends and romping be- 
gins it would be hard to say. There is a 



112 VAUDEVILLE 

troupe of girls — the Berlin Madcaps is the 
one I have in mind, though doubtless there 
are many others — whose gambols, without 
losing a sort of dancing rhythm, are the es- 
sence of romping gaiety, with a flavor of the 
pony-ballet added. They indulge in the 
maddest scampers, jumping rope, driving 
each other like children playing horse, even 
pushing each other "wheelbarrow" fashion. 
It is not truly a dance, but a gay, laughing 
mockery of what the dance may become if 
agility and activity are untouched by art. 

There is material enough for a whole book 
to be written on the subject of the dance 
on the Vaudeville stage. For it is so es- 
sentially one of the elements of joy and 
delight, that its mood of the moment must 
inevitably reflect something of the temper 
of the age itself. Fortunately, the popular 
form of dancing in the present revival, in 
spite of objectionable features, tends, on 
the whole, away from the sensual or provo- 
cative toward the vigorous, the joyous and 
the stimulating. The frank display of leg 



THE LURE OF THE DANCE 113 

is, as a rule, without coquetry or salacious- 
ness; and, though the old-fashioned may 
mourn the frankness as robbing femininity 
of its mystery, it is much more wholesome 
than the conscious effrontery, inevitable to 
any such display, when legs are discreetly 
named limbs and to show even an ankle is 
considered immoral. 

So necessary, however, has agility become 
that there is a danger of our losing sight of 
the necessity of beauty. That there should 
be any great demand for poetic beauty in 
our dancing entertainments is too much to 
hope at present. But the dance in itself can 
claim attention which would be denied to 
other forms of poetic appeal. And if all 
who appreciate the charm of the poetic 
would register their appreciation when 
dances of poetic beauty are given, we might 
do more to nurture a truly artistic expres- 
sion and encourage a taste for the beautiful 
than by confining our appreciation to exhi- 
bitions given for the select few. 

At present our Vaudeville audience is in- 



114 VAUDEVILLE 

clined to be shamefaced about accepting the 
claim of poetic beauty. Sentiment and pret- 
tiness it can readily understand and accept. 
But there is a solemnity which accompanies 
true beauty, however joyous its expression. 
It touches something deep and sacred in us 
and to find themselves unexpectedly in its 
presence is, to some people, embarrassing. 
It is as though we had strayed unintentional- 
ly and in our working apparel into the 
ceremonial court of some great festival. Yet 
I believe that we all own a festal garment, 
clad in which we may join unabashed once 
in a while in some high festival. 




VALESKA SURATT 



CHAPTER VI 

Plays and Sketches 

INTO the Vaudeville bill there has crept 
of late years a new and increasingly im- 
portant factor. Hardly any bill in the thea- 
tre of importance is considered complete un- 
less it includes one of these items. This 
turn is the one-act play, presented usually 
by actors from the legitimate stage and 
often headed by a star of the first magni- 
tude. Authors of the finest talent are de- 
voting their energies to producing these 
plays and there is no doubt that the influ- 
ence of the latter will make itself felt on 
the stage of legitimate drama. 

The one-act play was introduced tenta- 
tively some years ago. It was not infre- 
quently said that "audiences did not want 
them," and the taboo epithet of "highbrow" 
115 



116 VAUDEVILLE 

was muttered against them by some of their 
opponents. However, they have triumphed 
even over that and now, since Mme. Sarah 
Bernhardt has made her successful tour, it 
cannot be claimed that anything is "too 
good" for Vaudeville. 

Before the introduction of the one-act 
play Vaudeville audiences were familiar with 
the sketch, which still holds its place on the 
boards and has its uses. The sketch differs 
in motive and construction from the play, 
being usually a vehicle for the display of 
the specialty of some particular performer. 
There is not necessarily any attempt to make 
a completed story or episode so long as the 
presentation of the specialty is invested with 
some extra human interest which sets it 
forth in a new and attractive manner. A 
musical specialty, for example, must be in- 
troduced, so we find the long lost child 
brought to the home of her parents in the 
guise of a strolling singer, and recognized 
by the singing of some particular air. Hugh 
McCormick and Grace Wallace, ventrilo- 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 117 

quists, present a scene at a theatrical agent's 
in which their dolls play important parts. 
The humors of a negro impersonator are 
set forth in a scene between a lazy negro 
and a super-energetic white lady who would 
engage him to work on her farm. Or the 
comic absurdities of knockabout comedians 
are exploited in a scene of workmen em- 
ployed to fix a furnace. In all of these it 
is the specialty which counts, the sketch 
being simply the medium by which it is 
presented. Often the sketch completely 
evaporates when once the specialty is thor- 
oughly under way, and it is not uncommon 
to see the front drop fall halfway through 
the act, irrespective of the milieu of the 
sketch, the rest being finished off in front 
of it so that the stage may be prepared for 
the next turn. 

In this way the "Avon Comedy Four" 
play a sketch which starts in a village school 
to which a new teacher has been appointed. 
The scholars arrive, and finding the luck- 
less stranger, whose authority has not yet 



118 VAUDEVILLE 

been proved, they begin to amuse them- 
selves. They sing and dance and play tricks 
on one another. Soon the attention of the 
audience is concentrated on the specialties of 
the different members of the troupe and the 
schoolhouse idea is forgotten. The front 
cloth comes down casually. It is one of the 
stock cloths belonging to the theatre in 
which they are playing for the week and 
in all probability represents some street in 
the locality where the theatre is situated. 
But that makes no difference. It is the sing- 
ing and dancing which now claim the at- 
tention of the audience, and schoolhouse and 
teacher are not referred to again. 

But the one-act play is a different thing 
all together. The rules of dramatic con- 
struction apply here as in any other drama. 
Its motive must be set forth consistently 
and completely. It relies on no stunts to 
carry it through but must work up to a given 
climax and present an acceptable denoue- 
ment. Naturally, it is a play of a single mo- 
tive. There is no time to build up an elabo- 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 119 

rate structure of entangled circumstance 
and then unweave the web. We must be 
able to grasp the issue in a few moments. 
The motive of every character must be sim- 
ple, there is no opportunity to present a 
complex study, such as Hedda Gabler, for 
instance. If local color is needed it must 
be introduced with a few sharply defined 
strokes and no time must be wasted on un- 
necessary dialogue, however epigrammatic 
it may be in itself. 

From this it can be seen that the tech- 
nique required of both actor and author of 
a one-act play differs from that demanded 
in a play of three or more acts. I believe 
that to accustom oneself, for a time, to get- 
ting clear down to the bone of your matter 
in one slice is not at all an unwholesome 
discipline. It obliges one to be decisive. 
The moods and motives of each character 
must be penetrated with no shirking. One 
must get the desired impression across the 
footlights in one stroke. But for an ideal 
training in dramatic technique this method 



120 VAUDEVILLE 

must not be followed too long. For it is 
only by a process of wholesale elimination 
that such directness can be obtained, and the 
truth of the study will always depend on 
how far the author and actor have realized 
all the intermediary processes which the ex- 
igencies of time have not allowed to be 
shown. So that it must be good for the au- 
thor or actor to return from time to time 
to the more elaborate and subtle working 
out of the longer play, in which every step 
in the development of his structure must 
be tested before his audience. 

It is only in recent years that the one-act 
play has had any chance in this country. 
And yet it seems not at all improbable that 
it is just this form of drama which is most 
adapted to the genius of the American peo- 
ple. The qualities necessary to its success 
are those in which we, as a people, excel. 
The bold grasp of facts, the somewhat im- 
petuous habit of "jumping right in" to 
things are national characteristics. Even 
the tendency to emphasize strongly, to ex- 




ARNOLD DALY 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 121 

aggerate possibly, to go for the main point 
without greatly troubling about subtleties, 
have their place in the one-act play; and 
these are much more native to American 
ideals than are the finely weighed values and 
elaborate structure-building of the longer 
drama. It would, therefore, not greatly 
surprise me if, when great American Drama 
comes to be written, it should take the form 
of the one-act play. 

Let us look at some of the plays that have 
recently appeared in Vaudeville. 

A clever little farce by Owen Johnson, en- 
titled A Comedy for Wives, is presented 
by Arnold Daly. It depicts the varying 
moods of a young husband who has just 
discovered that his wife has eloped. No 
sooner has his bachelor friend succeeded in 
diverting him from suicidal rage to a joy- 
ous elation at the prospect of freedom and 
a trip to Paris, than the wife returns and 
announces her repentance and resolve to de- 
vote herself henceforth to him and to him 
only. Although there is no attempt to make 



122 VAUDEVILLE 

of this anything more than a farcical trifle, 
still it is complete in its dramatic construc- 
tion and the situations evolve quite logically. 
Nor is the extravagance of the fun unrea- 
sonable in view of the nervous, excitable 
character depicted. 

One of the most delightful little one-act 
comedies ever written is J. M. Barrie's 
Twelve Pound Look, in which Ethel Barry- 
more recently appeared. It touches on 
problems very vital and puzzling, but al- 
ways with a humor so kindly, so wise and 
so playful, that it is possible to forget the 
depths beneath in admiration of the charm 
of light and shade which plays upon the 
surface. 

There is the pompous, small-minded, self- 
made man who is to be knighted — ennobled 
above his fellows for the world's admiration. 
He is privately practising deportment for 
the ensuing ceremony of investiture. His 
cowed and insignificant wife must also be 
drilled to share the lustre he has conferred 
on her by making her his partner. His 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 123 

"impromptu" speech must be typewritten to 
appear in the papers and a stenographer is 
to be sent from an agency to do the work. 
When the girl arrives, smart, buoyant, in- 
dependent, happy, he recognizes, to his con- 
sternation, his divorced wife. He is shocked 
at her downfall, but puzzled and annoyed 
at her evident happiness. To satisfy him 
she agrees to tell why she left him. To his 
surprise it was not to go to "another." It 
was to escape his overbearing superiority 
and win for herself an individuality of her 
own. She had saved twelve pounds, the 
price of a typewriter, learned to use it and 
started out to earn her own way. And as 
he, gasping and hardly credulous, gazes at 
her she glances at the shrinking, subjugated 
second wife and warns him to treat her kind- 
ly and to beware of the twelve pound look 
in her eyes — the sign that she longs for a 
means of escape. 

Ethel B anymore has never appeared to 
greater advantage than she does as this in- 
dependent, radiant, breezy woman, who has 



124 VAUDEVILLE 

won out in her own battle and who looks 
at the man who has never understood her 
and who never will with just a little wist- 
fulness mixed with her relief from his op- 
pression. He is not a bad fellow and she 
would have liked to make him see, but she 
knows him to be incurably blind. 

It is a play which makes plenty of de- 
mand on the audience, for it holds more in 
it than the mere facts related in actual 
words. It is a piece of modern life in touch 
with modern feeling. It hits hard at the 
snobbishness and selfishness of this self-com- 
placent benefactor, whose sole motive in life 
is his own glory and its enhancement. But 
at the same time the story is told with such 
simple, humorous clearness that it amuses 
even those who do not care to penetrate be- 
low the surface. 

Kathryn Kidder is another actress whose 
talents put her in the very front rank of 
artists of to-day. She has been admirably 
fitted with a part written by her husband, 
Louis Kaufman Anspacher, embodying the 




ETHEL BARRYMORE 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 125 

character of Mme. Sans Gene, in which char- 
acter she made one of her greatest hits on 
the legitimate stage. The sparkling little 
comedietta deals with the compelling per- 
sonality of Napoleon and appeals strongly 
to that element of romance and hero worship 
ever to be found in audiences. The shrewd, 
plain-spoken washerwoman-duchess outwits 
the suspicions of the Little Corporal and 
finally convinces him of the innocence of an 
apparently intriguing adventure which has 
been fastened on a young officer by enemies 
of the Empress. 

The story is so full of color and reality 
that I find myself wondering whether part 
of the lukewarmness to the drama about 
which managers complain may not have its 
root in the modern desire to condense. We 
are asked to sit through four acts when the 
fare provided is just about enough for one, 
according to our present day rate of liv- 
ing. At all events, here is a little comedy, 
the material of which might easily have been 
stretched out to a whole evening, but which 



126 VAUDEVILLE 

is condensed into a short half-hour, during 
which we are amused and interested every 
moment. We should not have enjoyed it 
any more if we had spent the whole evening 
at it, and possibly physical weariness would 
have robbed us of our zest. As it is we can 
enjoy to the full this one little gem and as 
much or little of the other turns as we please 
without being required to pay for our men- 
tal refreshment with physical weariness. 

That comedy is not the only offering ac- 
ceptable is proved by Nance O 'Neil's selec- 
tion of The Worth of a Man. A grim lit- 
tle tragedy, wrought out in narrow, toilsome 
lives, it is acted with a sincerity that blinks 
none of its gloom. A convict returns to 
his home to realize that he has lost his place 
among men and that even with his wife 
another has supplanted him. The wife tries 
to conceal her breach of faith and the sup- 
planter sacrifices his life to make atonement 
for the wrong he has done. But all is un- 
availing; nothing can restore to the outcast 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 127 

his sense of recognition as a man and the 
tragedy ends in bitterness and doom. 

Melodrama of the popular crook type 
finds its exponents in Taylor Granville and 
Laura Pierpont. Their play, The System, 
calls for three scenes and a lengthy cast to 
present its lurid happenings. Of its kind 
it is a well concocted series of thrills, run- 
ning smoothly and plausibly with not too 
great a strain on the possibilities. The story 
is admirably handled, so that the characters, 
whether that of the persecuted crook or the 
persecuting policemen, appear human and 
convincing. And it is very evident that the 
audience, as a whole, thoroughly enjoys it, 
perhaps because it is sufficiently like a slice 
of life to appeal to their curiosity. For 
the craving to see how the other half lives 
and thinks is undoubtedly a strong factor 
in the present love of crook plays. 

Drama, strong and poignant, is offered 
by Blanche Walsh in The Countess Nadine. 
The story, as the name suggests, deals with 
Russia, and the plots and counterplots of 



128 VAUDEVILLE 

spies of the police. There is little oppor- 
tunity in it for the comedy in which Blanche 
Walsh is so charming, but its gripping in- 
tensity gives her ample scope for earnest, 
vigorous emotion. 

And how shall we speak of that bright- 
est of all stars of the theatrical firmament 
who has lately flashed across the Vaudeville 
stage, Sarah Bernhardt? A tribute of hom- 
age is the least that can be rendered and this 
has already been paid throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. For she has not 
brought to Vaudeville the threadbare rem- 
nants of her art, but has mastered a new 
and wonderful technique, built on years of 
experience and animated by an art which 
age cannot touch. She has recognized the 
limitations imposed on her by increasing 
years and met them and obliterated them 
by the force of her genius. 

They tell a story of her, the truth of 
which I cannot vouch for, which seems so 
illustrative of her indomitable spirit that it 
gives a clue to her triumph. While kneel- 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 129 

ing before the Altar in the play Jeanne 
d'Arc, her knee was pierced by a nail. She 
gave no sign of her agony until the per- 
formance was over nor was the severity of 
the wound recognized until blood poisoning 
had set in. For a while her condition was 
so serious that it seemed that it would be 
necessary to amputate the leg. Her atten- 
dants tried to conceal from her their anx- 
iety, but by accident she one day overheard 
some words which revealed to her the ter- 
rible possibility. She realized to the full 
that it meant the end of her career as an 
actress. But not for one moment did she 
think of it as the end of her career as an 
artist. She still had her wonderful expres- 
sional gift which has ever belonged to her 
public nor would she allow it to be wasted 
on account of any infirmity of her own. She 
immediately set herself to planning how best 
she could use it in the event of becoming a 
cripple. Before her attendants knew that 
she was aware of her danger she had in her 
mind designed a little carriage in which she 



130 VAUDEVILLE 

might be drawn on to the stage and from 
which she might recite and interpret those 
plays in which she has thrilled the world. 
Over her, as she lay, should be strewed roses, 
which might fall around her path as she 
was moved. 

It is in just this spirit that she has faced 
the limitations imposed by increasing age. 
She acknowledges that she can no longer 
pace with panther-like grace across the 
stage. So she stands, hardly moving from 
one place, or even sits through long acts. 
But she does not allow this fact to decrease 
the expression of restless, nervous energy 
that she would convey. We are made to feel 
it burning through her whole frame. It 
flashes from her eyes and vibrates through 
the tensely held body and beautiful, sensi- 
tive hands. 

It is undeniable that her voice shows signs 
of wear. No longer can she flute continu- 
ously on those notes of gold. But she re- 
serves them for the one passage where they 
will melt the very soul. And, for the rest, 




NANCE O NEIL 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 131 

it is so informed with sincerity of feeling 
that it arouses a response to every shade of 
emotion expressed. 

This is indeed a new and wonderful tech- 
nique in which ardor of soul has taken the 
place of physical energy. With this she 
still sounds the richest and most varied 
chords in the orchestra of emotion and paints 
pictures glowing with vitality and color or 
holds the senses in a still intensity of ela- 
tion. 

I think one part of her fancy has fulfilled 
itself: for the roses dropping from her 
abundant store make beautiful every place 
over which the chariot of her art passes. 

I saw her first in the heyday of her prime, 
when expression pulsed through every mo- 
tion of her lithe, perfectly trained body, and 
I hailed her as a wonderful actress. I see 
her now when the fire of her genius flames 
through the frailties of a body not strong 
enough to contain its lustre, and I hail her 
as a wonderful artist. 



132 VAUDEVILLE 

Meanwhile, although the recent appear- 
ance of Sarah Bernhardt was undoubtedly 
the event of that dramatic season, it may as 
well be acknowledged that it was not to the 
ordinary habitue of the Vaudeville that she 
most strongly appealed. 

Of the crowds who thronged the theatre 
and were turned away from the door at 
every performance a very large part were 
people to whom Vaudeville was an unex- 
plored field. This might be taken as a proof 
that in it there is something for every one 
if he will but look for it; and it is not im- 
possible that one of the results of her visit 
may be a strong inducement to provide at- 
tractions for the hitherto unreached public. 
To keep up the standard set by the engage- 
ment of Sarah Bernhardt would, of course, 
be impossible ; for her name stands alone and 
is a household word throughout the civilized 
world. Nor can it be denied that just on 
that account many have come to see, not 
the artist, but the celebrity; for there is, 
unfortunately, a large public whose curi- 



PLAYS AND SKETCHES 133 

osity is stronger than its appreciation of 
art. But in spite of this let us hope that 
the fact that lovers of the very best can be 
brought to Vaudeville is now thoroughly im- 
pressed on the minds of those who provide 
our entertainment. If it is we shall un- 
doubtedly reap the benefit. 

But when all is said and done the ulti- 
mate result rests with the public. If it will 
continue to seek out the best and give it 
support, not only when guided by a historic 
name but wherever a worthy occasion occurs, 
we know that there is ambition enough 
among the managers to supply whatever de- 
mand is made. 



CHAPTER VII 

Versatile Mimics and Proteans 

THE imitative faculty is so inherent in 
the human race that the limits of its 
influence are difficult to appreciate. The 
child absorbs many of its attributes, physi- 
cal, mental and moral, by force of imitation, 
either conscious or unconscious. It imitates, 
not only what it admires, but even what it 
dreads; the doctor, the policeman, the bur- 
glar, no less than the president, the cowboy, 
the "grand lady" or the fairy queen. 

Some of us grow out of our habit of imi- 
tation, but many more do not. Some of us 
continue to be unconscious of it, but retain 
it just as strongly. We have all known peo- 
ple whose imitation of those they admire is 
laughably apparent; whose "best friend" of 
the moment can be recognized in the poses, 

134 




CECELIA LOFTUS 



VERSATILE MIMICS 135 

gestures, mannerisms, tones of voice, which 
they themselves reproduce for the time 
being. 

Did you ever look into the faces of an au- 
dience and catch sight of one in which the 
expressions of the actors on the stage was 
mirrored, one after another, with no con- 
sciousness on the part of the face's owner? 
It would seem as though such a face must 
be a sort of sensitized plate, obliged to re- 
produce whatever came within the angle of 
its vision. 

It is this quality of translating by his 
own body, voice and actions, the impres- 
sions received, just as the action of the light 
on the sensitized plate translates the objects 
before it, which is the medium of expression 
of the imitator. With him, however, the ac- 
tion is not unconscious, but studied as care- 
fully as an artistic photographer studies his 
subject in order to bring out the salient 
points. And when every characteristic has 
been absorbed, the imitator must be able to 
add to the reproduction the feeling of the 



136 VAUDEVILLE 

original. For the time being he must feel 
like the subject that he is portraying and 
he must be able to impress this f eeling on 
his audience. 

Just as the photographer, by focus and 
arrangement of light and by careful han- 
dling, can influence the result of his photo- 
graph, so the imitator, by diversifying his 
methods, may give us the result in differing 
ways, each way being none the less a true 
imitation. He may give us a straight por- 
trait — a more or less exact imitation of the 
subject with only such emphasis placed on 
the individual peculiarities as shall help us 
to recognize the original. Or he may pre- 
sent a caricature in which the peculiarities 
are exaggerated and minor details elimi- 
nated and only the salient features selected. 
Or it may be a burlesque that he shows us 
in which only the peculiarities are shown, the 
rest being grotesque additions. 

When we speak of imitators, two or three 
names stand out in every mind, notably those 
of Cecilia Loftus and Elsie Janis. It is 



VERSATILE MIMICS 137 

some years since the latter appeared in Vau- 
deville, but her work in this medium is still 
distinctly on the order of Vaudeville, so we 
make no apology for mentioning it in this 
connection. 

Cecilia Loftus, known wherever the Eng- 
lish language is spoken as Cissy Loftus, is 
a dainty Chelsea china-shepherdess, en- 
dowed by some elfin sprite with a sense of 
humor. The combination is irresistible. For 
a Chelsea china-shepherdess might with per- 
fect justification be content to be dainty 
and pretty and coquettish and quite vapid. 
But when her eyes can twinkle and her 
cheeks dimple and with a quaint twist her 
mouth can utter roguish little sarcasms with 
perfect good humor, the effect is piquant 
and surprising. And when before your very 
eyes the Chelsea china-shepherdess trans- 
forms herself into one after another differ- 
ing personalities, all of whom you have met 
before, you find yourself marvelling. And 
the transformation is not only in broad out- 
lines but in details of personality. Watch 



138 VAUDEVILLE 

the nervous rigidity of her figure, the angle 
of the knee, as she impersonates Mrs. Fiske. 
Listen to the metallic tensity of the voice. 
Then see her melt into the soft, diaphanous 
personality of Maude Allen, all lissomness 
and pliability. Hear the sobbing monotone 
of her voice and note the nervous languor 
of her movements, as she portrays Jane 
Cowl, and contrast them with the clean-cut 
rhythmic movement of her Sarah Bern- 
hardt. How entirely she gives herself up 
to each succeeding portrait! For the time 
being there is nothing left of her own in- 
dividuality. It is a portrait, presenting de- 
tails of manner, pose and figure with every 
feature and foible peculiar to them. 

In some of her monologues, however, 
Miss Loftus shows that she is no stranger 
to the art of caricature. Her complacent 
young mother, travelling in a motor-bus 
with her small boy, emphasizes with just 
the right touch of exaggeration the stoical 
indifference, not devoid of self -conscious- 
ness, with which she incommodes her fel- 



VERSATILE MIMICS 139 

low-passengers. Alternately she reproves 
and encourages the child to "show off," lin- 
gers over her final alighting and exhausts 
the patience of everyone, yourself included. 
And then the twinkle of the merry eyes 
and the dimples of the Chelsea china-shep- 
herdess flash out again and you realize how 
completely you lost her in the caricature 
of the other woman. 

I do not speak of Cissy Loftus's imita- 
tion of Nazimova, because it is a compara- 
tively easy thing to do. The peculiarities of 
the latter are so marked and her accentua- 
tion of them so obvious, that at times she 
seems to be caricaturing herself. She is 
imitated by nearly every impersonator. I 
have seen an amateur, and a man at that, 
give an imitation of her so convincing, that 
it conjured up the very image of her to one's 
mind's eye. On the Vaudeville stage among 
the best that I have seen is Violet Dare's 
satire on "Bella Donna" — a creepy, spidery 
creature, in a grey-silver, clinging garment, 
with close-bound hair, with slithery furtive 



140 VAUDEVILLE 

walk and sensuous writhing body and voice 
purring and lisping in tones obviously arti- 
ficial. It is a trifle over elaborated, but the 
subject was a tempting one and not very 
hard to present. 

Elsie Janis is, again, the portrait-painter. 
Ethel Barrymore she does to the life — the 
matured Ethel Barrymore with her warmer, 
more human characteristics. And Laurette 
Taylor! It would surely be weird to have 
the two of them together, for little Peg o' 
my Heart would be thinkin' it was her own 
double she saw and mightn't that be un- 
lucky, now? 

How delightfully mischievous Elsie Janis 
is when she pushes back her hair, and with 
the ingenuousness of a schoolgirl — and she 
isn't much more, after all, — imitates Fred 
Stone, with whom she is acting. Of course 
this time it is a caricature, but it is done with 
the effect of spontaneity, giving the impres- 
sion that she has never even attempted it 
before, which is very piquant. There are 
other things which she can do besides imi- 




MARSHALL WILDER 



VERSATILE MIMICS 141 

tations, and I expect to see her succeed in 
things which as yet she has not attempted. 
For it is a great thing to be young and still 
growing, and still greater to have made a 
success but not lost the ambition to grow. 

So far we have spoken only of imitators 
who rely entirely upon their power to in- 
fuse into their own persons the peculiari- 
ties and individualities of their subjects. 
But there is a large class of impersonators 
who rely for their effects largely on elabo- 
rate noses, wigs and even cheeks and chins. 
These are wonders of skill in their composi- 
tion and are manipulated before your very 
eyes, so that in a minute, by carefully 
planned movements, the performer and his 
attendant have transformed the outward 
semblance of the man from Napoleon to 
Lincoln, or from Henry Irving to Theodore 
Roosevelt. One of these, Lamberti, adds 
to the imitations of several musicians a 
skilful performance on the instrument most 
affected by the original. 

Caesar Rivoli, too, impersonates in this 



142 VAUDEVILLE 

way ten famous musical composers, con- 
ducting in the orchestra fragments of their 
compositions and stooping down for one 
moment behind the conductor's desk to ef- 
fect his transformations. It is true that, in 
the matter of make-up, the triumph be- 
longs in great part to the wig-maker; but 
no efficiency expert has ever excelled the 
economy of movement that is employed by 
these impersonators in their rapid changes. 

In the gay little sketch which is Kivoli's 
chief offering and in which he takes the 
parts successively of seven different char- 
acters, it is again more the rapid change of 
make-up and costume which commands ad- 
miration. For in every one we can but 
recognize the voluble exuberance of Rivoli 
himself. He is bubbling with an excitability 
truly Latin, when he appears as his own 
prologue, and he bubbles in varying keys in 
each of the characters that he portrays with 
the same vivacity and exuberance. 

For impersonality and disassociation from 
the characters he assumes, the work of Owen 



VERSATILE MIMICS 143 

McGiveney in his personifications of five 
characters from Dickens's Oliver Twist is 
quite remarkable. In his prologue he stands 
before us, a quiet, self-contained young 
man, rather retiring in manner, with no as- 
sumption of forcefulness, giving one the 
impression of a student rather than an en- 
tertainer. Dressed in ordinary evening 
clothes, he gives a resume of the play in 
which he is about to appear, and as he re- 
tires, almost before you realize that he is 
off, there rushes on, in his costume of a man- 
about-town of the period of 1860, Monks, 
the nervous plotting, flushed-faced step- 
brother of the hounded little Oliver. He 
bursts into the wretched garret of Fagin to 
warn his accomplice that one of his wretched 
gang, Nancy, has betrayed them. 

He fumes through the empty room with 
hurried footsteps, and finding no one to 
whom to tell his tale, departs. The door has 
not closed behind him before the curtains 
of the bunkbed part and the hob-nail boot 
of Bill Sykes appears and that husky bully 



144 VAUDEVILLE 

heaves himself lumberingly into sight, 
burly, beetle-browed, slow of speech and 
movement but dogged, fierce, persistent. 
He burns for drink to slake the fever caused 
by his last night's carouse, and finding none 
in its accustomed place, with a curse at the 
negligence of Nancy, lurches off to get it. 
Then, while the clump of his boots dies away 
down the stairs, Nancy slips into the room, 
faltering, afraid, hesitating. Browbeaten 
and cowed as she is, she still cares for the 
comfort of her brutal lover, though disgust 
at his cruelty and savageness has deter- 
mined her to save Oliver from the clutches 
of the wicked crew. She knows well enough 
that death awaits her if they learn of her 
design and knows too whose will be the hand 
to deal it. But her instinct leads her still to 
minister to this brute whom she has made 
her master and serve him humbly as here- 
tofore in spite of the fear and repulsion stir- 
ring in her heart. She goes out and Fagin, 
the master mind of this band of rogues, en- 
ters; so instantaneously, that one almost 



VERSATILE MIMICS 145 

conceives of them being both on the stage 
together. 

There are many ingenious technical tricks 
for holding our attention on the disappear- 
ing actor for a moment or two before his 
reappearance in the next character at an- 
other entrance. The skirt of the dress is 
caught in the doorway — a hand still holds 
the door jam — the walking stick still pro- 
trudes for a little while, or the voice is still 
heard finishing the sentence — so that our im- 
agination holds the presence of the character 
which has disappeared and the reappearance 
of the actor under another guise, with a voice 
changed not only in key but in intonation, 
quality and utterance, seems hardly less than 
magical. 

And so the grim little drama is played 
out until the sickening blows and moans are 
heard which tell of the murder of Nancy by 
her brutal mate while Fagin listens, cower- 
ing and yet exultant. One other character 
is added to the list, that of the "artful Dod- 
ger," pert, callous, depraved, but light- 



146 VAUDEVILLE 

hearted and philosophical, a character dis- 
tinct from the others and as forcibly ren- 
dered. For each one is thought out in every 
minute detail of movement, pose and utter- 
ance, with a keen study of how best to stimu- 
late the imagination of the audience so as 
to invest each character with a permanence 
and position with regard to the others and 
the working out of the story of the drama. 
It is a fascinating exhibition and Owen 
McGiveney has brought to it no small 
amount of intellectual and psychological in- 
sight. It is a pity, however, that he has not 
called to his aid a writer of dialogue with 
the literary ability to give characteristic 
form to the utterances of the various per- 
sonalities. The turn of their sentences, the 
choice of words and phrases, should have 
quite as much character as the sound of the 
voice or the action of the body, whereas at 
present, except in such sentences as are taken 
directly from the original book, the dialogue 
is monotonous and flat, compared with the 
variety and individuality of the action. 




KATHLEEN CLIFFORD 



VERSATILE MIMICS 147 

There are many more pictures being 
shown in this great photographic gallery of 
Vaudeville. Some are fanciful and humor- 
ous, some are grave and actual, but all are 
the records of sensitized minds, displayed 
through the medium of a plastic and respon- 
sive body. 

Though he possesses many of the qualifi- 
cations of the actor, there is enough dif- 
ference in the requirements of an imitator 
to make it by no means certain that the lat- 
ter would necessarily be a great actor. For 
one thing, this presentation of the instan- 
taneous picture is different from the grad- 
ual building up and unfolding of a 
sustained character, and the very ability to 
concentrate the qualities and characteristics 
in a flashlight presentation will probably 
counteract the slower and more gradual de- 
velopment, needed in the structure of a com- 
pleted character in a play. 

We might go even further and say that 
in some respects the technique of the actor 
and that of the imitator are entirely oppo- 



148 VAUDEVILLE 

site, the one to the other. The conscientious 
actor, if he is allowed to approach his work 
as an artist, will study the environment, ten- 
dencies, temperament, motives and mood of 
the character he is to represent, as well as 
the circumstances leading to his action. 

Then, having mastered all of these in such 
a manner as to be able by the power of his 
imagination to feel them emotionally, he 
will discover by what means they would nat- 
urally display themselves. He must then 
go a step further and study how to heighten 
their display, so that the audience shall be 
able to interpret the emotions, prompting 
these actions, without any appearance of 
behavior beyond the normal and human. 
Thus, his gestures and the character of 
them, the tones of his voice, his movements 
and carriage, are moulded from within. 

The imitator, however, begins at the other 
end. With him it is the gesture first and 
the character of it, and from that back to 
what prompted it. There is no need to probe 
back very far into tendency, and motive, any 



VERSATILE MIMICS 149 

more than the maker of the plaster cast of 
the "Unknown Lady" need analyze the 
meaning of her inscrutable smile. But the 
Florentine artist who created it must have 
lived with its mystery burning in his brain 
and heart for many a long day before he 
fixed its cold, sweet cruelty in the marble 
to live through the ages. 

This failure of the imitator to do crea- 
tive work was shown very plainly in the 
attempt of one of these impersonators to 
fill out the scene of the death of Svengali, 
the villain of Du Maurier's sensational suc- 
cess, Trilby. 

In the touch and go of his previous im- 
personations he had given us character and 
dramatic action. But when it came to the 
full scene there was no power to give struc- 
tural form to the conception. The interest 
was not built up, step by step, to a climax. 
The first stagger and clutch at his heart of 
the dying man was as full of horror as his 
final death. All his intermediate writhings 
added nothing either of character exposition 



150 ^VAUDEVILLE 

or dramatic intensity. The interest of the 
audience, instead of increasing 1 , was allowed 
to relax. The artist could give us an ad- 
mirable snapshot, but could not elaborate 
a finished picture. 




MARIE LLOYD 



CHAPTER VIII 

Some English Visitors 

THE theatre, like all the arts, cannot 
help being more or less a reflection of 
the manners and morals of its age and coun- 
try. And this is no less true of the Vaude- 
ville or variety entertainment, thought in a 
different way. For we do not look there for 
an exact representation of the way in which 
people think or act, or even dress, but we 
do see what are the things which they think 
amusing, what it is which touches their sen- 
timentality, the things which seem to them 
enviable, and what they regard as "fun." 

In a previous chapter I have spoken of 
the change from the old English Music 
Hall, catering only to the amusement of 
men, to the present style of "Refined Vau- 
deville." This development has necessarily 
151 



152 VAUDEVILLE 

brought corresponding changes in the brand 
of entertainment offered for the delight of 
this different audience. To trace this grad- 
ual change let us look at the differences of 
method and manner of a few English visi- 
tors, the dates of whose visits cover the time 
allotted to a generation, while their knowl- 
edge of stage life extends even further back 
than that. They are all still with us at the 
present time of writing, and, in spite of 
changes of taste there is so much that is 
genuinely exhilarating in their turns that 
they still minister to our delight. 

Many of the present generation of vaude- 
ville goers will not remember the first ap- 
pearance of Marie Lloyd in this country. 
She belongs in temper and time to a day 
which in this country is quickly passing, but 
she has her place firmly rooted in the hearts 
of her countrymen. For Marie Lloyd is 
the personification of the spirit of the old 
English Music Hall. She has really no 
place in "Refined Vaudeville." She belongs 
to the era of beef and beer and loud laugh- 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 153 

ter and broad winks. But beef and beer are 
not unwholesome, and a roar of hearty 
laughter is ever so much better than a snick- 
er and a broad wink. Well, when the wink 
is as cheerful and wholehearted and uncon- 
cerned as Marie Lloyd's there is not much 
harm in a wink. 

It is quite impossible to acquit Marie 
Lloyd of vulgarity; but it is a straightfor- 
ward, hearty, spontaneous vulgarity, that 
smacks more of the primitive frankness of 
an untutored child of nature than the sophis- 
ticated salaciousness of the cosmopolitan. 
Yet there is no denying that the romping 
fun of this boisterous coster-girl, her loud, 
frank laugh, her jokes of more than dubi- 
ous intent, and that impudent wink, may 
prove disturbing to a generation whose man- 
ners, if not their morals, are less robust than 
hers. We do not openly encourage that 
type. There are no coster-girls among us. 
Our factory girls may be occasionally bold 
and not too modest, but they will have you 
know that they are "pufFeck ladies," even if 



154 VAUDEVILLE 

they are a bit flirtatious and giggling in 
their demeanor. Marie Lloyd never makes 
any pretence of being a "puffeck lady." 
She knows no harm in her frank utterances, 
and sees no reason for anybody being 
shocked. 

So, when she sees anything which strikes 
her as humorous, she mentions it with the in- 
nocence of a child. But, in a polite assem- 
blage such a child is an "enfant terrible," 
and any attempt to assuage her plain speak- 
ing would only result in confusion worse 
confounded. But one does not greatly de- 
plore the conduct of a naughty child, and 
most of us can laugh at its betisses. 

One of her songs — I do not know if she 
has sung it here — is about a girl who by a 
series of accidents found her way into the 
harem of the Sultan. She sang it dressed 
in a weird mixture of Turkish trousers and 
coster-girl hat and feather, and accompanied 
it with a parody of an Oriental dance, bois- 
terously and irresistibly funny. With rol- 
licking heartiness it described how she "left 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 155 

the Sultan sitting on his throne and came 
straight home to Bill." And this is just 
what she has done. She has kept away from 
the luscious, the sensual, the seductive, and 
jests merrily with full-blooded human facts 
of life in the spirit of good-humored sim- 
plicity and raillery. 

Nor must it be forgotten that she repre- 
sents a type fast disappearing. But in their 
heyday the real Cockney of Cockaigne, un- 
trammelled by the era of "improvements," 
recognized him or herself as being wholly 
different from but by no means inferior to 
the "toffs" — those lofty creatures of cul- 
ture and decorum. The Cockney had his 
own code of morals and manners, and a few 
lurid phrases were not incompatible with 
it. The responsibilities of life weighed 
lightly on their shoulders. Care is not in- 
duced by what we have to do without, but 
by what we unavailingly crave. So poverty 
is not humiliating when you are as well off as 
your fellows, and ignorance is no matter for 
shame if you know as much as they. So 



156 VAUDEVILLE 

they lived, a law unto themselves in their 
kingdom of Cockaigne. 

Once accept these facts and Marie 
Lloyd's broad comedy is as natural as the 
frolicking of a young colt in springtime. 
Just because the world is young and she is 
full of gaiety and high spirits, up go her 
heels into the air, no matter what conven- 
tion they kick down. And the world is 
young, and so is she, and so are all of us — 
when we are happy. For youth is largely 
a matter of feeling, and fortunately it is con- 
tagious, and there is no one who can spread 
the contagion faster than Marie Lloyd. 

No less brilliant, and perhaps more in ac- 
cord with modern ideals, is her sister, Alice 
Lloyd. Here again we see the easy author- 
ity of the artist who has thoroughly mas- 
tered the technique of her craft. As such, 
she feels instinctively the response of her 
audience, and can play upon it and foster 
it for its own more abundant delight, as 
the laughing water mirrors back the sun- 
shine. Vesta Tilley must have spent pretty 




VESTA VICTORIA 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 157 

nearly half of her life dressed in masculine 
garments, her actions parodying those of the 
lords of creation, while her mind has been 
quizzing and mocking them with a kindly, 
humorous philosophy. 

I believe she was about five years old 
when she made her debut at Birmingham, 
England, in a burlesque of the then famous 
tenor, Sims Reeves. Adorned with a silky 
black moustache and clad in a tiny dress suit, 
the little tot sang with exaggerated fervor 
the sentimental ballads about "My Pretty 
Jane" and the "Pilgrim of Love" and all 
the other objects of idolatry in vogue at that 
time. 

And since then she has continued to par- 
ody the youth of the opposite sex. She is 
the laughing critic of their foibles and weak- 
nesses and remains always as young as they. 
I should not like to count up how many 
years it is since I first saw her the "principal 
boy" at a pantomime, and a very dainty lit- 
tle fairy prince she was, too. But it was not 
long before she discarded the doublet and 



158 VAUDEVILLE 

hose, and reappeared as the modern "chap- 
pie" in evening dress, topper, walking stick 
and monocle. Then, as usual, she told us 
of her escapades and her sage reflections 
thereon. And this she has been doing from 
that time to the present, sketching for our 
delight a gallery of characters, including 
the happy youth of the day, in every variety 
of type — soldier, sailor, schoolboy, clerk, 
and, her favorite of all, the young fellow 
about town. In every one she has studied 
her subject and entered into his feelings and 
shared his views and knows his world. 

Her "Tommy Atkins" is a gay, careless 
dog, very sure of his fatal effect on femi- 
nine hearts. Very smart and conscious of 
his well-set-up figure, he cocks his head and 
swaggers saucily, his tiny feet strutting pre- 
cisely to the music. He twirls his little cane, 
or, using it as a sword, lunges desperately, 
then sheathes it in his left hand as he stands 
at "Attention." Or he marches stiffly, a 
huge cigar tipped at a surprising angle be- 
tween his lips, puffing like a steam engine, 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 159 

chest protruding, but with a beam of satis- 
faction spread over his face, and his eyes 
turning to watch the stunning effect on all 
beholders. 

Then there is a captivating midshipman, 
who dances such a hornpipe as sets the pulses 
tripping to its measure. No leaf in the 
wind ever floated across the ground more 
lightly than this swaying, bending, flutter- 
ing figure, with the precise tap-tapping feet 
and eyes dancing as merrily as music. She 
is an adorable sailor-boy, not, perhaps so 
fully characterized as some of the other 
types, but loveable and winning. 

There is the cheap young clerk, enjoying 
the splendor of his summer holiday, and 
the gorgeous raiment he has provided for its 
celebration. He has toiled and saved that 
he may loll on the Brighton promenade in 
the guise of a young aristocrat and impress 
passers-by with the enviableness of his lot. 
And here Vesta Tilley brings out just a lit- 
tle hint of pathos in the poor fellow, not by 
any direct statement, but by his heartfelt so- 



160 VAUDEVILLE 

licitude that not an item of the apparel which 
he has purchased at such sacrifice shall be 
missed, and his grim determination to enjoy 
every minute of his poor, short week. There 
is an irony here, something more subtle than 
mere impersonation, for it interprets as well 
as satirizes. 

But, after all, the character by which she 
is best known is her London Chappie, light- 
hearted, rollicking, insolent, complacent. 
He is a little too apt to be tipsy, and then he 
is not so pleasant; but, when he is just out 
for a lark, he is irresistible. His shrewd wis- 
dom, the result of his profound experience, 
is delicious, and his gaiety delightfully in- 
fectious. 

There is no artist on the stage to-day who 
is more closely in sympathy with the audi- 
ence than Vesta Tilley. She can play with 
it, mould it, keep it in suspense, until you 
begin to fear that her action is too slow, then 
suddenly she snaps out a climax with a rattle 
and verve that sweep all before it. And it is 
done with a conscious love of the artistry 




ALICE LLOYD 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 161 

of it. In a curious way the very ground- 
work of her success in depicting these mas- 
culine types lies in the femininity of her per- 
sonality. She is not mannish, and her point 
of view is not that of the man, though she 
has an understanding of it. She stands 
apart and views her types with a detachment 
that can appreciate the values in them bet- 
ter than if she approached them from a more 
personal standpoint. She is critic and apolo- 
gist, interpreter and mocker, all in one. 
Withal she remains eternally youthful, 
cheerful and sincere. 

Vesta Victoria is quite as old as her 
mother, Vesta Tilley, and has no trace of 
the saucy swagger that characterizes that 
gentlemanly young fellow. She is one of 
the blonde, soft, slow-moving English 
women, and scores her points by seeming 
not to see them. The extreme simplicity of 
her poor, rag-bag-looking bride, in her song, 
"Waiting at the Church," gives a keynote to 
her whole method. She just does not un- 



162 VAUDEVILLE 

derstand, and is looking to you to explain it 
all to her. Even the peculiarly explicit note 
from the bridegroom-expectant, giving as 
his reason for not appearing "my wife won't 
let me," doesn't seem to convince her of the 
true state of things. Her pellucid, bell-like 
voice, with just a suspicion of throatiness 
in it, is as questioning as that of a child who 
has not quite decided whether to laugh or 
cry. There is no conscious use of any of 
the technical tricks, of pauses, of glances at 
the audience, or gestures or asides. The 
whole story is poured out in very simple 
words, in a manner naive and unstudied, at 
times almost querulous and with absolutely 
no hint at appreciation of any humor in it. 
This same simplicity is the mark of another 
song about a country woman, left wander- 
ing in the streets with her baby while her 
husband is hunting a lodging for her. The 
story is told with almost stolid straightfor- 
wardness, which is humorous in its complete- 
ness. "Poor old me, I haven't any key and 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 163 

I don't know where I live." Could anything 
be simpler? 

I don't know if Vesta Victoria is versa- 
tile. I have only seen her in this one per- 
formance, when her characteristics appeared 
so definite and clear-cut that it hardly seemed 
possible they should vary. True she had 
one romping song, describing a disastrous 
horseback ride in which the descriptions 
were a little more energetic than in the oth- 
ers. But there was the same direct uncon- 
scious simplicity, with evidently no intention 
to be funny. She is, in fact, quite sorry for 
herself; but there is not a bit of tragedy 
in her sorrow. You feel assured that it 
would take very little to make her dry her 
eyes and forget her troubles. I think that 
is one of the reasons of her popularity. 
Troubles seem such simple affairs as told 
by her. She appeals to our sense of su- 
periority. We know we could straighten 
matters out for her and manage her busi- 
ness to perfection, and she, poor little 
thing, seems to know it too. She tells the 



164 VAUDEVILLE 

tale of the sad muddle she makes of every- 
thing and we see the humorous side of it, 
which she seems to have missed and again 
our sense of superiority is tickled. 

Only afterward do we realize how com- 
pletely she has convinced us by the force of 
her appeal and then we recognize the art 
of it. She has reckoned on a certain quality 
in our mental makeup and results have 
proved the wisdom of her calculation. 

One of the latest of our English visitors 
is Ada Reeve, and a contrast of her methods 
with those of Marie Lloyd marks how far 
Vaudeville has travelled from the old Mu- 
sic Hall. 

One of the first impressions one gets of 
her is that of a well conducted young per- 
son who, from her demure demeanor, might 
be the governess in a nobleman's family. 
Her blond hair is parted and brushed sim- 
ply back from a face tanned by out-of-door 
life. Her almost quakerish gray dress, with 
its pretty lace collar, has nothing striking 
or extravagant about it and is long enough 




KITTY GORDON 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 165 

and wide enough to conceal her neat little 
feet and ankles. Her manner is hesitating 
and friendly and studiously ladylike. 

Then she sings; and her songs show that 
in spite of studied deportment this young 
lady has leanings toward life that are not 
included in the curriculum of the school- 
room. For her songs are mostly concerned 
with more or less clandestine love affairs 
carried on under the nose of authority. And 
they are sung with a relish instead of dis- 
approbation. Sometimes she dances, neatly 
and deftly, with an odd little mixture of 
demureness and liveliness. 

Then comes the singing of "Do, Sue, do," 
which is accompanied by an extraordinary 
wriggle of head and chest. It is a master- 
piece of grotesqueness, wholly gratuitous, 
for the contortions have absolutely no bear- 
ing on the subject of the song. It takes 
the audience by surprise, with its audacity 
that is so entirely unlooked for. 

It is the climax of the surprise which 
commenced with the twinkle of the eyes 



166 VAUDEVILLE 

when the first line of the first song revealed 
its equivocal situation. It is worked up very 
neatly and skilfully, at no time forced. 
Even the grotesque wriggle is done with an 
exuberance that makes it seem spontaneous 
and natural. One feels that there is plenty 
of reserve behind it. The limit has not been 
attempted, even if frolic did become a little 
daring. And at the close of the perform- 
ance the little grey-clad figure drops back 
into ladylike demeanor just as correctly as 
if she had never shown the unconventional 
humors which were concealed by the mask 
of decorum. 

This is in itself a little satire on human 
nature. There is piquancy in the surprise 
of finding the lurking little devil peeping 
from an unexpected corner. But how wide- 
ly it differs from the wild fling of spirits, 
the rollicking jollity of Marie Lloyd. In 
reality it is not a bit less of the earth earthy. 
But it is not the sport of the untutored child 
of nature. No! It is an "educated" little 
devil. Its speech and manners have gone 



SOME ENGLISH VISITORS 167 

through the "grammar grades" at least. It 
knows there are solecisms unpermissible ; but 
it hasn't paid much heed to its lessons and is 
not very sure what they are. Yet it is care- 
ful — so careful that we cannot fail to notice 
every lapse. 

One other impression — quite English, you 
know — remains in my mind. A tiny, droll, 
nondescript figure, clad in voluminous turk- 
ish trousers of blue, and a scrimpy basque- 
like jacket, with some foolish sort of dish- 
plate hat crowning the whole effect. And 
her laugh! How it bubbles and rings out 
like a clarion call to merriment. Was there 
ever a person living who could resist the 
laugh of Katie Barry? It told you more 
about laughter than all the treatises of Berg- 
son and other Philosophers put together. 
For it convinced you that there is no limit 
to the potentialities of a happy, hearty 
laugh. 



CHAPTER IX 

Marvels of Strength and Skill 

I BELIEVE there are people who say- 
that they do not care for acrobatic per- 
formances. Of course there are reasons for 
this antipathy. One is that the element of 
danger, which to many people is a source of 
attraction, to others is distasteful if not 
positively distressing. Another reason is 
satiety. The feats performed have so ex- 
ceeded the limit of what seems humanly pos- 
sible that, after having witnessed a certain 
number with astonishment, nothing more 
can cause any surprise or stimulate the jaded 
appetite. If one impossibility can be per- 
formed, why not another? Astonishment 
by itself is not a good wearing quality. It 
needs to be reinforced by something else 
if it is to last. 

168 




ANNETTE KELLERMAN 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 169 

With these cloyed appetites contrast the 
rapture of a child who witnesses such per- 
formances for the first time. The apparent 
ease with which difficulties are overcome de- 
ceives him. He feels assured that he too 
can perform these wonders, and defy grav- 
ity and space with daring leaps and unfail- 
ing poise. I think there is a dismal gap in 
the experience of anyone who cannot look 
back on the time when, after the first visit 
to a show of some kind, this new world of 
hazard and daring opened up before him. 
Then came the ambition to enter into this 
new world. The tottering attempts to main- 
tain one's balance for one moment on the 
top rail of a fence; the ignominious tum- 
bles ; the gradual awakening to the fact that 
severe discipline lay between attempt and 
achievement; the triumph of an infinitesi- 
mal success and the growing control of mus- 
cle and balance — all these should have their 
place in the storehouse of memories belong- 
ing to each of us. 

I have in my mind a picture of a tiny, pet- 



170 VAUDEVILLE 

ticoated creature, standing waveringly on 
the garden roller, shuffling desperately with 
sandaled feet, in emulation of the accom- 
plishment of a wonderful ball-roller, who 
with his feet had propelled his ball to the 
top of a narrow spiral path that in retrospect 
seemed to have soared to the height of a sky- 
scraper but which, I suppose, in reality may 
have reached some thirty feet. 

The child's stunt was never mastered, but 
the attempt at that and other achievements 
had their share in implanting a conscious- 
ness of the thrill that the conquest of some 
daring or hazardous venture brings with it. 
It taught, too, something of the require- 
ments needful to accomplish successfully 
even the simplest acrobatic acts: the poise, 
the mastery of every movement, the timing, 
the clearness of head and, above all, the 
patient practice which achieved the mastery. 
And I believe it is only this sympathetic 
viewing of acrobatics which can afford last- 
ing pleasure in these acts. If we sit back 
inert and watch them merely as a perform- 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 171 

ance of danger and difficulty we shall soon 
tire of them. But given even just enough 
knowledge of gymnasium work to realize 
for one's self the sensation, say of jumping 
for a trapeze bar, balancing one's self up- 
right on a rail, climbing hand over hand 
up a rope or any other quite elementary 
exercises, and use the memory of these sen- 
sations to help you to feel the movements 
of acrobats with your own senses; then, so 
far from complaining of boredom, you are 
more likely to find their feats too thrilling. 

What wonders they do accomplish, to be 
sure! There may be a few trick perform- 
ances that have more showiness than actual 
skill ; but by far the most part of them are, 
beyond suspicion, genuine marvels in their 
control of muscle, poise and timing. Heads 
must be incapable of dizziness, eyes sure 
and keen, wits alert and responsive and the 
whole body kept in a state of health and 
sanity. Without faltering they must in- 
trust their lives into the hands of their fel- 
lows, literally as well as figuratively. And 



172 VAUDEVILLE 

to make the act acceptable it must all be 
done with a zest and joy which makes the 
least of what is often the most difficult. Oc- 
casionally, especially with some of the for- 
eign troupes, we find them lashing them- 
selves into an intoxication with the abandon 
of their prowess. 

See those whirling Arabs hurl themselves 
in wild circling rings. Some heels over head, 
some doing hand spans and some those curi- 
ous wheeling twists in the air in which both 
gravity and anatomy are defied. How they 
vie with one another in endurance and agil- 
ity and cry out with irrepressible exultation ! 
We know that their skill is the result of 
long toilsome training, of patient practice 
and heart-breaking discipline. But to us 
they give only the joy of it, the sense of 
mastery, the achievements of which the 
physical energies are capable. 

There is a Japanese troupe calling them- 
selves the Mori Brothers. What could be 
more joyous than the zest with which they 
seem to play with the barrel which, as they 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 173 

lie on their backs, they hurl with their feet 
from one to another! They are not afraid 
to demonstrate the difficulty of their task 
by occasionally missing a catch. In fact, 
one almost suspects them of heightening 
their effects thereby. But how comically 
they express their derision of the unlucky 
one in a pantomime of wagging toes, softly 
rubbed feet and face grinning like a comic 
mask. 

They do some wonderful tumbling, too. 
For, as one man lies on the couch, his feet 
in the air, he supports on them his fellow, 
by the shoulders, head downward. From 
this position he tosses him in air and catches 
him, standing upright, on his feet, the two 
men being feet to feet. 

There are two men who are called on the 
bills Hanlon and Clifton, who present a 
very clever act in a quite unusual way. 
When the scene opens, it discloses a com- 
fortably appointed parlor, in which the two 
are discovered, dressed in ordinary business 
clothes, the one in an armchair near the 



174 VAUDEVILLE 

fire and the other playing on the piano. 
They might be two ordinary young chaps, 
sharing an apartment together, spending a 
quiet evening. Presently they both arise 
and strolling to the table each helps himself 
to a cigarette; then sit down, one on either 
side of the table. The larger of the two 
lights his cigarette; then, holding out his 
hand across the table, grasps those of the 
smaller man, who, springing from his seat, 
is immediately balanced, feet up in the air, 
on the hand of his companion. In this po- 
sition the larger one moves him, he himself 
arching his body, until their two cigarettes 
touch and the smaller obtains the needed 
light. They continue to do amazing feats 
on this order, all in the same easy, non- 
chalant way, as if it were nothing out of the 
usual. 

I believe they do remove their coats for 
some of the more energetic manoeuvres, but 
otherwise they show no signs of exertion. 
There is nothing of the attitudinizing to the 
audience or the conscious demand for ap- 




WILL ROGERS 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 175 

plause so often indulged in by acrobatic per- 
formers. Finally, when the turn is over, they 
stroll back, each to the position he occupied 
at the rise of the curtain and appear to be 
absorbed in the books and music of the quiet 
evening at home. 

It is rather a curious study of the psy- 
chology of audiences that, although during 
this performance one hears on all sides ex- 
clamations of surprise and delight, the fall 
of the curtain on the quiet, unspectacular 
scene rather discounts the volume of the ap- 
plause. 

Not less wonderful are the pyramiding 
and somersaulting of such experts as the 
Brack Troupe, or the balancing of the Heyn 
Brothers. They pile on to one another's 
shoulders, three or four high; then from 
the topmost pinnacle, the wiry, lightly built 
youth jumps, turning a somersault in air, 
and lands on the next highest human tier, 
and so on to the ground. All of these look 
so easy when done by experts. As you sit 
back comfortably in your velvet-upholstered 



176 VAUDEVILLE 

chair you may feel inclined to say with a 
shrug (I have heard it myself) : "Oh, just 
a little practice, that's all it needs!" But 
the person who says this is usually of the 
rotund proportions which suggest that his 
muscles have never been put to a greater 
strain than that required to step on or off a 
street car, while if he devoted the rest of 
his life (which under such circumstances 
would probably not be long) to practice, he 
would never achieve the simplest of the feats 
performed. 

Not content with pyramids and somer- 
saults from the firm earth we have them 
performed from motor-cycles, slack wires, 
anything to add to their danger and diffi- 
culty. I remember being told by a profes- 
sional acrobat that there are not above a 
dozen different feats essential for the acro- 
bat and that the art of the performer com- 
prises the combining and enhancing of these 
in such a way as to construct a "novelty." 
And so we find them thinking out new risks, 
piling one difficulty on another, never satis- 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 177 

fied to achieve less than what seems to be 
impossible. 

Nor is the skill any less when it is mixed 
with grotesque humor, as when we see one 
of a troupe whose business it is to make 
a series of failures, as brilliant in their own 
way as the successes of his fellows. Or 
there is Bert Melrose, a single performer, 
whose slippings and stumblings as he climbs 
up onto the loosely piled up tables, makes 
one's heart jump. When he finally reaches 
the top and sits on a chair, rocking com- 
placently, it is a positive relief that at last 
he falls with perfect ease and safety, bounc- 
ing up again in a triumph of boneless curves 
and twists and eccentric grins. 

The humors of these comedy acrobats are 
surely inherited from the clowns and pan- 
taloons of earlier days, with extra skill and 
agility added to the foolery. There is in 
most of us still enough of the child to laugh 
at their drolleries as they tangle themselves 
up in the furniture or fall, not only over, 
but under and all around the table, or put 



178 VAUDEVILLE 

their feet through the rung of a chair and 
only extricate themselves by wriggling the 
whole body after it. 

There is a troupe of these clown-acrobats 
called The Bogannys, which includes at 
least two dwarfs. The gusto with which 
they all throw themselves (literally as well 
as figuratively) into the uproarious fun, the 
whirlings and somersaultings and the vivid 
pantomime with which they emphasize the 
piquancy of their comedy give an air of 
phantasy and unreality to their performance. 
In their white bakers' dresses they are like 
some strange creatures seen in a dream, flit- 
ting and diving and rolling, now through 
the air, now along the ground; now en- 
twined together so that they seem like some 
curious many-legged insect whirring across 
the stage. Laughing carelessly, they fling 
each other from place to place with expres- 
sive gestures and lively caperings. 

Apropos of their pantomime, I heard a 
dispute once between two ladies as to the 
nationality of this troupe. One was sure 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 179 

they must be Italians. "Only Italians could 
have those picture-making gestures," she de- 
clared. "They might be Russians," her com- 
panion suggested. "Look at the abandon, 
the verve of their movements." 

As I looked I felt sure that both of them 
were right. There was certainly something 
exotic and foreign about these examples of 
perpetual motion. Just then the big, fat 
man of the troupe, evidently the leader, best 
in pantomime and very little behind in agil- 
ity despite his girth, cried out: " 'Owld orn, 
neow! Hup yer gew!" and then methought 
I recognized the native tongue of the Land 
of Cockaigne! Was it possible that, after 
all, this vivacious, gesticulating foreigner 
was a Britisher? 

The pantomime idea has been expanded 
into a connected story with much clever and 
amusing acrobatics interwoven by the De 
Witt, Burns and Torrance troupe in their 
delightful wonder act, "The Awakening of 
the Toys." It is conceived and carried out 
in the true spirit of Toyland, where the im- 



180 VAUDEVILLE 

possible becomes commonplace and the ac- 
tual appears ridiculous. 

Occasionally, but very rarely, our acrobats 
meet with accidents on the stage. But they 
take these risks very philosophically as part 
of the day's work. I remember hearing an 
acrobat tell with some pride that he had 
broken seventeen bones at one time or an- 
other but always while practising. He took 
great credit to himself that he had never 
had the bad manners to distress his audience 
by an exhibition of such maladroitness. To 
the public he owed only delight and it would 
have humiliated him to think that he had 
given them even this vicarious pain. 

Not exactly acrobats but appealing to 
something of the same motive are the prodi- 
gies of strength and muscle who exhibit their 
remarkable achievements. The earliest that 
I can recall is the young Sandow, then a 
blonde-haired youth able to lift a pony. 
Since then the list of these Samsons has been 
long and much ingenuity has been displayed 
in diversifying their acts. Women as well 




DAINTY MARIE 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 181 

as men are in the ranks. Among these mus- 
cular heroines to-day we have Charmon, the 
"Perfect Woman," whose muscles are not 
only wonderfully developed but are also per- 
fectly controlled, so that to her enormous 
strength she adds grace and deftness. 

The cowboy feats of skill and daring call 
for many of the same qualities as those dis- 
played by the acrobat, though their tech- 
nical accomplishment is different. The cool 
head, the precise well-timed movement, the 
unflinching decision. One of the most fas- 
cinating of these is the lassoing exhibition 
of Will Rogers. In his hand the lariat be- 
comes a thing of life, twirling, twisting and 
winding in graceful spirals, now over his 
head, now around his knees. As he throws 
it one almost fancies it looking for its vic- 
tim and poising itself, quivering, for the at- 
tack. Then, having selected the exact spot, 
darting at it with a lightning-like flick and 
enfolding itself around it. 

I wonder what is the exact process of 
mind that guides the muscles in all exploits 



182 VAUDEVILLE 

of this sort : those of the pitcher, the bowler, 
the boomerang thrower or the wielder of 
the oxwhip. It calls for something more 
than the sure eye and steady hand needed 
to aim with gun or arrow. It is a sense of 
poise which in some way projects itself 
through the course it has determined on and 
controls the muscles accordingly. But what 
a complicated process that is for the sub- 
conscious mind to accomplish. 

The picturesque side of the athlete is not 
neglected in Vaudeville and we have many 
different posing acts in which the fine forms 
and graceful postures of wrestlers, run- 
ners and hammer throwers are demonstrated. 
Sometimes the jabs and punches of prize- 
fighters are shown, or it may be ancient 
statuary is duplicated by living figures cov- 
ered with white or bronze powder. 

Quite as pictorial as these and combining 
no little agility and a touch of humor, we 
have Adonis and his clever little dog. The 
man balances himself on one hand upon a 
pedestal in postures and at angles which 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 183 

seem impossible and, finally, still on his 
hands, feet in the air, descends from the 
pedestal and walks down a short flight of 
steps. Meanwhile, the dog, which has previ- 
ously assisted by posing, now on his master's 
shoulder, now on his head, now on his up- 
raised foot, taking his position in each case 
with a comical air of satisfaction, as if he 
were sure that he was the chief attraction, 
hoists himself on his forelegs hind-feet in 
the air, and marches demurely downstairs 
behind his master with all the impertinence 
of a conscious mimic. 

The pictorial appeal was also illustrated 
in the popularity of the diving act of An- 
nette Kellerman. For although her sing- 
ing is above the average and she has con- 
siderable charm as a dancer and her diving 
feature is good, it was the perfect symmetry 
and lithe vigor of her form which won for 
her the admiration of the audience. There 
was, too, an impersonality in her posing, an 
absolute freedom from self-consciousness 
which was a revelation to those unused to 



184 VAUDEVILLE 

associating modesty with the frank display 
of beauty of form. 

In direct contradiction to the pictorial 
posings are the tricks of the contortionists, 
who bend and twist and tie themselves into 
every conceivable grotesque knot. If the 
athlete emphasizes the beauty and rhythmic 
poise of the well developed body in action, 
these enforce the grotesqueness of which it 
is capable when thus distorted. Can any- 
body, I wonder, enjoy both forms of enter- 
tainment? For my part, I confess the con- 
tortionist is not for me. 

But once in a while comes along a little 
elf of a creature, like one who calls her- 
self "Dainty Marie," who puts into her con- 
tortions a mischievous diablerie which gives 
piquancy to their uncanniness. This odd lit- 
tle sprite-like creature, slim and straight, 
with a quaint triangle of a face, who began 
her performance by singing some common- 
place songs, climbed a slack rope, chatter- 
ing and laughing and chirping out all sorts 
of impertinences, meanwhile twisting her- 




CHARMON THE PERFECT WOMAN 



MARVELS OF STRENGTH 185 

self and the ropes into every variety of com- 
plicated knot. Then, suddenly, she would 
fall, catching herself by a hitch of the foot 
in the rope and, hanging head downward, 
continue the chattering with the persistence 
of a parrokeet, her queer little three cor- 
nered face with its mop of tousled hair grin- 
ning fantastically. Then she played impish 
tricks on the weirdly dressed little parody of 
a page, her partner, twisting and bumping 
her as she clung to the rope she was sup- 
posed to steady, all the time laughing ma- 
liciously at the poor thing's discomfiture. It 
was a sort of goblin revel, and even contor- 
tions had their place in it. 

But my preference as a rule is for the 
exponents of skill and daring, muscles de- 
veloped naturally and vigorously, joints 
working with suppleness but unstrained, 
the body developed in rhythmic balanced 
proportions. I like to realize what wonder- 
ful machines they are, these bodies of ours, 
when managed by experts, and of what ef- 
ficiency they are capable when every mus- 



186 VAUDEVILLE 

cle is trained to its fullest use. But, I repeat, 
I should like to feel sure that every mem- 
ber of the audience had some personal 
knowledge of the sense of controlled mus- 
cular activity and harmony of movement. 
That they should all, at least once in their 
lives, have tested the need of accuracy of 
eye, sureness of movement, clearness of 
head, power of grasp, steadiness of nerve 
and all the hundred and one other things 
entailed in acrobatic feats. It would be 
wholesome and invigorating for them to feel 
that sympathetic thrill through their own 
frames in response to the daring of the per- 
formers, and insure them from the ener- 
vating sensationalism that comes of watch- 
ing the danger of others in which we our- 
selves have no share. 




ADA REEVE 



CHAPTER X 

Mysteries and Illusions 

IN these days of materialism no illusion- 
ist on the stage makes any pretence to 
the employment of superhuman agencies. A 
scientific phenomenon hitherto unknown is 
the nearest to the insoluble that they will 
allow themselves. But much more often, fol- 
lowing the example of those famous Eng- 
lish wonder-workers, Maskelyn and Cook, 
they frankly own that they are tricking you 
and put it up to you to solve the secret if 
you can. 

This in no way decreases the mystery of 
their performances. In fact, with some of 
them it would be almost easier to attribute 
their seeming impossibilities to the work of 
spirits than to attempt to believe them the 
work of human agencies. So that our wiz- 

187 



188 VAUDEVILLE 

ards have not divested themselves of their 
magic robes, but merely changed them to a 
more modern cut. 

This is the method adopted by Carl Her- 
man in his "Window of the Haunted 
House," an illusion on the order of the cabi- 
net mysteries. Right before the audience 
stands the "window," looking as though it 
might be a dormer taken from the top story 
of some house. It has two sides painted 
to represent brick, while the front, made of 
gauze stretched on a window frame, forms 
the transparent window. The back is cov- 
ered by curtains of black sateen hanging 
loose, there is a canvas roof and a solid floor. 
The whole structure is raised about three 
feet from the stage and supported on lightly 
built legs. 

The audience is shown that this structure 
is entirely empty and there is no trap in floor 
or ceiling, but, for all that, the moment the 
stage is darkened we see figures moving 
about through the transparent window. A 
young girl, an old woman, a sailor, a painter, 



MYSTERIES 189 

then a man and woman together, strug- 
gling in some violent quarrel. Then a pair 
of lovers are seen clasped in fond embrace. 
Then, a commotion, and the lights spring 
up, and at the window appear two men, one 
of them dressed as a fireman, supporting 
the inert body of a young woman, whose 
long hair, as her head droops from their 
arms, hangs out of the now open window 
and nearly touches the floor. The appari- 
tions have followed each other in little more 
time than it takes to tell of them but of their 
absolute solidity (at least of the final group) 
there can be no doubt. 

At some time and in some way they have 
conveyed themselves, unseen by the hundreds 
of people supposedly watching for them, 
into that box-like structure. At some time 
the Professor has seen to it that the atten- 
tion of the audience shall be attracted to 
some point, sufficiently far from where their 
entrance is made. And, most likely, the ac- 
tion with which he riveted our attention was 
a seemingly trivial one. For it is one of 



190 VAUDEVILLE 

the great arts of these masters of mystery 
to make the trivial seem important and the 
important trivial. The normal human im- 
pulse is their study, and they count upon it 
to attract or divert attention by the simplest 
methods. So that the very concentration 
with which the audience watches must be 
used, not as an obstacle but as an aid to 
the success of the trick. 

The Orientals have ever been masters of 
this command of the attention of the audi- 
ence, and they carry their illusions of shak- 
ing from a cloth full pails of water, 
chickens, or children to a wonderful perfec- 
tion. So, in his gorgeous setting of em- 
broidered Dragons on curtains of silk, vary- 
ing in color and design for various acts, 
Ching Ling Poo presents all these bewilder- 
ing fantasies with nonchalant wizardry, smil- 
ing his inscrutable smile. And the tiny Chi- 
nese children who assist him are so quaint, 
so unhuman and yet so childlike, that they 
seem like very perfect toys and one feels 
inclined to cry out with astonishment when 



MYSTERIES 191 

they run about or smile like other children. 

A number of years ago there appeared 
at the Alhambra in London an American 
lady named Annie Abbott. She had an act 
which was quite new to the British public 
and made a great sensation. Though slight 
and almost fragile in appearance, she could 
seemingly withstand the united strength of 
twenty men. A chair, upheld by her with 
no apparent effort, could not be forced to 
the floor, try as they might. Nor could any 
man lif t her unless she allowed it, though her 
weight seemed nothing above the ordinary. 

The name "Georgia Magnet" was sup- 
posed to give a clue to the source of her 
power, and tales were told of the feats of 
the lady in her youth and in her native coun- 
try. Doctors and scientific men were in- 
vited to investigate her performance and she 
succeeded in interesting no less a person 
than King Edward VII, then Prince of 
Wales. 

No direct claim to supernatural power 
was made, but theories about magnetism or 



192 VAUDEVILLE 

the influencing of currents were offered. 
The management, in fact, put itself into the 
position of begging the public to help it to 
find a solution of the mystery of this strange 
power. 

For some time the Georgia Magnet was 
the talk of all England. Then she went 
on to the Continent and was less favorably 
received. There was talk about the mystery 
being merely a matter of adjusted balances 
and after a while nothing more was heard 
or seen of her in Europe. 

Lately she has reappeared in full vigor 
with the same amazing act, confounding the 
devices of strong-armed men. 

Balance or no balance, or whatever is the 
secret of her power, it is a remarkable ex- 
hibition. For, if it is balance, it must be 
most nicely adjusted; and though the little 
lady may not be especially magnetized, she 
at least has extraordinary vivacity and per- 
sonality to hold the attention of the public 
and especially of the committee whom she 
calls on to assist her in her demonstrations. 










nv 






tf? 



JJl® 



HOUDINI 



MYSTERIES 193 

For although we enjoy being mystified, 
there is always a very large percentage of 
people who would love to know "how it is 
done." And these are not by any means 
the ones most likely to volunteer to act on 
the committee. They will scrutinize from 
their place in the audience and suggest so- 
lutions of the problem to their neighbors. 
At any time, also, some member of the com- 
mittee may hit on an idea, near enough to 
the truth to prove embarrassing to the per- 
former. So she must watch them constantly 
and find occupation and diversion for those 
who might prove troublesome, but without 
allowing them to feel that they are in any 
way regarded with suspicion. 

In talking once to an old magician and 
prestidigitator I remember him saying that 
the most mystifying illusions are frequently 
the result of the simplest tricks, and that 
devices, thought out by him on the spur of 
the minute, were often more successful than 
those over which he labored for months. The 
reason that the public do not find them out 



194 VAUDEVILLE 

is that they are looking for some elaborate 
device for what is the result of a very sim- 
ple action. He instanced one of the old 
cabinet tricks, in which a bound man was 
put into the cabinet and in a minute, when 
the curtains were withdrawn, he was dis- 
covered still bound but stripped of his waist- 
coat, his coat being still on. This was ex- 
plained by the fact that the waistcoat he 
wore before retiring into the cabinet was a 
trick one, having no back, and he was able 
to remove it without the aid of his hands. 
Meanwhile he dropped on to the floor at his 
feet an ordinary waistcoat which he had car- 
ried concealed beneath his arm and when 
this was shown to the public a great point 
was made that it was still warm from his 
body. As a matter of fact, he said, the 
waistcoat was much warmer than it would 
have been if it had been worn in the ordi- 
nary way, but even the most scrutinizing in- 
vestigator had never noticed the fact. 

Another man who has succeeded in mys- 
tifying the public is Houdini, to whose 



MYSTERIES 195 

power as a wonder-creator must be added in- 
genuity as an advertiser. No fetters will 
hold him and he seems to be amphibious. He 
has defied the drowning capacity of the com- 
bined forces of the Hudson and the East 
River at the Battery and the locks, bolts 
and bars of the old prison-ship Success, be- 
hind which so many prisoners have lan- 
guished. 

His performance on the stage is suffi- 
ciently mystifying, if less sensational, than 
those he has exhibited free, gratis to the 
public. He makes his appearance on the 
stage, on which before a canopy of yellow 
curtaining are arranged a huge safe-like 
tank, with a glass front, and the brass pails 
and cisterns, filled with water which is to 
be poured into it. He is his own showman 
and is wearing the ordinary dress of a citi- 
zen as he explains his paraphernalia. He 
speaks good English, with just the suspicion 
of a trill of the R and a carefulness of enun- 
ciation to suggest that it is not his native 
tongue. His manner is quiet and self -con- 



196 VAUDEVILLE 

tained, his form small, and even when 
stripped for his plunge shows no extraordi- 
nary muscular development. Evidently his 
power is that of dexterity, rather than force. 

He exhibits the contrivance which forms 
the lid of the tank into which he will pres- 
ently be plunged, head downward. It is 
constructed like the old-time stocks in which 
the feet were held tight clipped at the ankles. 
A committee is asked to examine this con- 
trivance to make sure that the feet could 
not be slipped out when once the lock is se- 
curely fastened. While the tank is being 
filled with water Houdini retires to prepare 
for his plunge and reappears in a bathing 
suit, his arms and legs bare. We see the 
water splashing into the tank from a hose- 
pipe as well as from the pails on the stage. 
There is no doubt about its reality. 

Houdini is then secured in the stocks and 
hoisted by a pulley into the air, then low- 
ered into the tank with a splash and a swish 
which drenches his attendants. Then the 




CHING LING FOO 



MYSTERIES 197 

canopy is drawn forward and round the 
tank. 

Two minutes elapse : then the curtains are 
withdrawn, and behold the man of mystery 
is standing beside his tank, unfettered, and 
— wonder of wonders — hardly more than 
splashed with wet. His wiry bush of hair, 
the real showman's hair, is dry. One is as- 
sured of this after one sees him emerge from 
another plunge when his hair becomes slick 
and smooth and dripping like ordinary hair. 
Is there some clue here to "how it is done"? 
I don't know, only it sets one thinking. 

Of his sensational emersion, confined in 
a box punched with holes, in the bay at the 
Battery and the attempt of the police to 
stop the exhibition, on account of its al- 
leged danger, I own I can imagine no solu- 
tion; or how he escapes from the cells of 
the ship's dungeon which must have been 
attempted by others before in more desperate 
cases. He makes no claim to extraordi- 
nary powers and is content that you shall 



198 VAUDEVILLE 

discover his methods if you are clever 
enough. 

This is, after all, quite as it should be to 
typify our age. For Science is our Magic 
with germs and microbes as Imps of good 
or evil. Chemistry is the witches' cauldron 
and Mechanics the broomstick, while Serums 
and Inoculations take the place of charms 
against evil. Physics supply the magic 
manifestations and Psychology the spells 
which entrance the unlearned multitude and 
gain its wondering credence. 




RAY COX 



CHAPTER XI 

Miscellaneous Fun-makers 

WHEN all is said and done, it will, un- 
doubtedly, be found that what the 
Vaudeville audience most craves is a good, 
hearty laugh. A turn which is certain to 
provide this is pretty sure to be a success. 
The comic sketch, the knock-about acrobat 
and dancer are aiming at this great achieve- 
ment. But the one above all whose mer- 
chandise is laughter, first, last and all the 
time, is the story-telling song-singing come- 
dian. He is the direct descendant of the 
Court Jester of early days. He must amuse 
or lose his head. He is privileged to tilt 
with his wit at objects usually considered 
too venerable for attack. His personalities 
are excused, his breaches of decorum over- 
looked, if only he succeeds in his purpose 
of compelling a laugh. 

199 



200 VAUDEVILLE 

The public may be fickle but as long as 
these mirth-providers can afford it food for 
merriment they cannot grow too old for a 
welcome. There is, for example, Gus Wil- 
liams. I don't know how far back he dates, 
but he is an acknowledged old-timer. Yet 
his stories and quaint turns of expression 
are lively still. 

And there is Lew Dockstader, whose 
blackened face and red minstrel lips have 
looked out from the hoardings of nearly 
every city in the Union any time these 
twenty years and more. His voice may be 
growing a little thin and worn, but his unctu- 
ous chuckle is just as infectious as ever it 
was! 

Whatever may be the name or setting of 
their particular sketch, the true intent of 
Maclntyre and Heath is to provide a 
medium for amusing dialogue, anecdote and 
repartee. Here again are the black-faces. 
The contrast, however, in appearance be- 
tween these two fun-makers — the small, 
meagre, stumbling, fumbling manner of the 



FUN-MAKERS 201 

one and the portly, pompous, imposing de- 
portment of the other — makes a fine 
groundwork on which to build varying in- 
ventions of mirth-provoking incongruity. 

And talking about blackened faces, could 
anyone withstand the shambling, ingenuous 
drollery of Frank Tinney? He comes as 
near to the genuine, native darky humor as 
any one of the black-face tribe. There is 
just the "colored-gen'leman's" mixture of 
childish bashfulness and self-satisfaction 
about him as he shuffles on to the stage, ar- 
rayed in his miscellaneous, misfit garments. 
His self-satisfaction makes it necessary that 
he shall talk, even if he has nothing in par- 
ticular to say; and his bashfulness makes 
him hesitate and shuffle and get his words 
hopelessly mixed up. He is artlessly con- 
fiding, and tells you all about his own affairs 
in those queer, blurted sentences with their 
bewildered pauses, helped out with "y° u 
know what I mean," and an innocent, in- 
gratiating smile. 

He knows you are going to laugh at him, 



202 VAUDEVILLE 

though he doesn't quite know why, but he 
laughs with you so that you shall not dis- 
cover that fact. Or if he thinks that you 
have misunderstood him he enters into 
elaborate explanations which begin with 
"Listen! no, but listen!" and tangles him- 
self up more hopelessly than ever. 

Al Jolson is a fun-maker of quite a dif- 
ferent type. He has a vigorous, swinging 
energy that keeps things busy all around 
him. His is not the negro comedy but a 
more conscious humor, full of a vitality 
which overflows and can diffuse itself into a 
whole stage-full of people and make the 
air full of the hum of fun and merriment. 

Bert Williams, like many of the fun- 
makers, varies his narratives with songs, 
sung with odd, unexpected accents to the 
words. For, of course, it is the words that 
the audience wants from the comedian. The 
orchestra can be trusted to supply the mu- 
sic, the comedian need not trouble about 
that. Indeed, I don't think it would ap- 
prove if he did. It is laughter, and more 




BERT WILLIAMS 



FUN-MAKERS 203 

laughter, and still laughter which is his con- 
cern; and, if Caruso had started his career 
as a professional funny-man, I doubt 
whether he would have had much chance to 
be heard in pure music. 

So we have, too, Fred Duprez, who some- 
times sings, and whose comicalities come 
bubbling out so fast that he never has time 
to finish one story before he is plunged into 
the next. He has a way of working up the 
point of his joke so that the train for the 
laugh is all laid, and then, just as you ex- 
pect him to explode it, he stops short and 
leaves you to set the match yourself while 
he is up and away, off to lay a new train. I 
have seen an audience left so breathless by 
his sudden change of base that it has almost 
seemed as if the spark were going to miss 
fire. But somehow the day was saved. A 
droll pause of bewilderment, as he waited 
for the audience to catch up with him, an 
inquiring turn of the head with a slowly 
widening smile, and the spark was guided 



204 VAUDEVILLE 

to the charge and the salvo of laughter 
boomed out. 

Bert Fitzgibbon, the "daffydill," is an- 
other comedian whose absurdities crowd 
one upon another until laughter becomes al- 
most a weariness. His drolleries are of the 
order that depend entirely for their effect on 
the manner in which they are given. I doubt 
very much whether they would appear 
funny in cold print. But, given with his 
absurd mixture of whimsicality and silli- 
ness, they keep his audience in a gale of 
laughter. It is a conscious, crazy foolish- 
ness, well pleased with itself and willing to 
let you in on the joke, if you like; but not 
caring greatly whether you do or not. May- 
be, you will call him downright silly, 
but he will only laugh the louder and play 
wilder pranks than ever, not a bit impressed 
by your solemnity. It is the crazy frolic of 
youth, exhilarated by its own high spirits. 
If you can let yourself go, and join in the 
fun there may be no better sport. But it 
could never compel a smile, if you are not in 




FRANK TINNEY 



FUN-MAKERS 205 

the humor for it. Fortunately, the laughter 
of the audience is generally there, glad to 
be set at liberty and not too critical of the 
means employed to release it. 

Neither of the two last named performers 
assume any particularly characteristic cos- 
tume. They wish for no disguise, but as- 
sociate themselves as closely as possible with 
their own normal personality. You might 
easily recognize them if you met them after- 
ward on the street. 

As a contrast we have the extravagant 
"tramp" make-up of Nat Wills, or of Billy 
McDermot, who calls himself "the last of 
Coxey's army." It is a purely American 
product, this comic tramp, and he has be- 
come almost as much a tradition as is the 
Pierrot of the French Pantomime. 

He is a happy, tattered, slovenly, red- 
nosed rogue ; glorying in his detestation of 
work and water and gaily oblivious of the 
rights of property. He lies for the pure 
joy of lying and his hunger and thirst are 
absolutely unappeasable. His costume has 



206 VAUDEVILLE 

become traditional. A battered hat, through 
which his hair sticks out; the remnants of 
a once black coat; ragged pants, too large 
for him, supported by a string round the 
waist, from which is suspended his trusty- 
tomato can; a gaping pair of shoes cover 
sockless feet — the whole effect being sur- 
mounted by a grin of inordinate propor- 
tions which seems to stretch nearly round 
his head. He is full of chuckling mirth and 
has a vocabulary of slang large enough to 
start a new language. He has a super-in- 
genuous manner, which he especially as- 
sumes when he most intends to deceive, while 
the excuses that he can give for avoiding 
anything which looks in the least like work 
may be contradictory but are without end. 
Such is the type, and there are many of 
him besides the two above mentioned. The 
details may differ but the essentials remain 
the same. He is a brand of the "picaresque" 
or Spanish rogue — comedian, mixed with 
the clown of the harlequinade. His face 
is painted almost as grotesquely as theirs 




NAT WILLS 



FUN-MAKERS 207 

and, like them, he is a survival and already 
a tradition. The tendency of the present 
day audience is, I think, to tolerate rather 
than to crave these grotesques; and I ques- 
tion whether it is not rather amused by the 
inherent humor of their stories and jokes, 
which differ but little from those of other 
tellers of stories, than by the tramp char- 
acteristics they assume. 

Further there are the political and topical 
monologists. Such was the late Cliff Gor- 
don and such is Rube Dickerman. These 
talk about current events, criticizing freely 
and often hitting very shrewdly. 

Rube Dickerman assumes the disguise of 
an Indiana farmer; small, gray, with chin 
whiskers and a quiet, drawling speech in a 
high-pitched voice which breaks at unex- 
pected places, and at other times trails off 
apologetically. He has a shambling, pre- 
occupied walk, with bent knees and drag- 
ging feet — the walk of a man who is on his 
feet all day and every day but who never 



208 VAUDEVILLE 

walks from choice. But he can dance; and, 
when he does, he manages still to maintain 
the characteristics of his type. His is the 
gaiety of a man who seldom unbends and, 
when he finds himself doing so, is uncertain 
whether he or his friends are the more sur- 
prised. 

Cliff Gordon's was a wholly different 
rendering of the same idea. He presented 
it as a German- American politician, hard- 
headed, shrewd-witted and not easily de- 
ceived. There was no appearance of jollity 
as he spoke of current events or the pres- 
ent situation, but rather a kind of fiery im- 
patience just turned from bitterness by the 
humorous curl of the large lips and a soft- 
ened twinkle of the keen blue eyes under 
their shaggy brows. He spoke in a direct 
translation from German idioms which gave 
unexpected and very expressive turns to his 
remarks and helped to take the sting from 
their sharpness. His monologues provoked 
loud and hearty laughter, while Rube Dick- 
erman's call forth a continuous soft chuckle. 



FUN-MAKERS 209 

There is all the difference between strok- 
ing and striking; and, while Cliff Gordon 
struck vigorously one's sense of the ridicu- 
lous and called forth an equally vigorous 
response, Rube Dickerman just strokes one's 
sense of humor and evokes a chuckle that 
continuously purrs. 

The Hebrew comedian is another well 
known Vaudeville type. I never saw Dave 
Warfleld when he played these parts and 
do not know whether he was funnier than 
Joe Weber, whose work is always so full of 
character that he does not seem to be acting 
at all. Among the clever characterizations 
in this line is that of Ben Welch. It is con- 
ceived in the true comedy vein, by which I 
mean that it is not grotesquely exaggerated. 
The character is adhered to consistently 
and you are made to feel that in spite of his 
exuberant humor this is a real person. 

Ben Welch has the true comedian's sense 
of the value of movement and the necessity 
of occasional repose. Every gesture or 
twitch of the muscle gives some addition 



210 VAUDEVILLE 

of character to the impersonation. No mat- 
ter whether he is stumbling onto the stage 
with his shiftless, slouching, casual gait, or 
giving burlesque imitations of a Yiddishized 
Napoleon or Abraham Lincoln; or darting 
off the stage with bent knees and furtive 
stride; or by pantomime describing the jab 
of a hypodermic needle, the action is always 
exactly adjusted to the idea. There is no 
superfluous emphasis, no fidgetty, meaning- 
less motion ; but every muscle of limbs, face, 
and body is responsive and controlled. His 
smile is slow-spreading and crafty, as he ex- 
plains "Any man what's smarter than I am 
I don't want to do no business with." Or it 
is smugly self-satisfied as he explains how 
as car-conductor he found business too slow 
on the horse-car line, and so took his car 
around to Fourteenth Street, where busi- 
ness is rushing. 

He sings unsentimental parodies on the 
popular songs in a mixture of the slang of 
the day with the speech of the ghetto and 
we get some of those surprises of language 




KATE ELINOR THE HUMAN BILLIKEN 



FUN-MAKERS 211 

which in time become current phrases. And, 
withal, he is genial, content with himself and 
everything around him. He finds nothing 
to criticize in life, for he is confident that 
if anything should happen to be wrong he 
will be able to turn it to his own advantage. 
And there we get the touch of cynicism 
which completes the character. 

The fun-makers are not all of the mascu- 
line gender. One of the funniest of them 
is Kate Elinor, whose spontaneous, rollick- 
ing absurdities seem to gush from an unfail- 
ing spring. Her cheery good humor and 
inconsequent comicality have earned for her 
the name of the "Human Billikin." Never 
was woman less troubled with self-conscious- 
ness. Her face is one broad, expansive smile 
which seems to radiate from the top of her 
little nob of hair, tightly screwed to the 
size of a shoe-button, right down to the sole 
of her formidable looking boots, and from 
every angle of her square-built frame. She 
is the most familiar of friends with her audi- 
ence, not only as a whole but individually 



212 VAUDEVILLE 

and separately. You could fancy that she 
calls each one of them by his first name and 
knows his wife and how old the baby is. 
There is a gesture she uses, to mark when 
she thinks her points have hit the mark. She 
points her finger, as though it were a pistol, 
at some individual in the audience, screws up 
one eye as though to sight and clicks with 
her mouth to make the sound of a shot. This 
is done with an offhand carelessness just 
to keep things lively. And then that gig- 
gling, deprecating flap of the hand, with 
the broad, good-natured smile accompany- 
ing it — it is quite her own and is just the 
gesture that a Billikin should make. Her 
audience is speedily engulfed in laughter 
like a rock at high tide. And how she re- 
sponds to and gloats over their mirth, and 
reabsorbs it to radiate it on them again. 

Another lady to claim a place among the 
fun-makers is Isabel d'Armond. Her tiny, 
laughing, piquant personality with its air of 
droll seriousness, has something of the in- 
tentness of a child at play. Dressed in the 



FUN-MAKERS 213 

most freakish of costumes and with lines 
that are often more than a little risque, she 
carries them all off with this air of absorbed 
briskness, as unmindful of the laughter of 
her audience as Kate Elinor is responsive to 
it. I remember her in absurd pantalettes 
and a very unmanageable hoop-skirt. Her 
preoccupation with this unruly garment and 
apparent annoyance with its uncouthness, 
all the while seeming to try to carry off her 
embarrassment without attracting attention, 
was as cleverly depicted as it was laughable. 
She can dance, too, very neatly and nimbly. 
So can her partner, whose legs, describing 
wild circles and arches far above her head 
make him seem, in comparison with her tiny 
figure, like some huge daddy-long-legs. 

The songs of Kathleen Clifford are al- 
ways sure to provoke an answering laugh, 
while Ray Cox is a direct contradiction to 
the assertion that women have no sense of 
humor. Hear her describe a ball game or an 
aeroplane ascent and you will be convinced 



214 VAUDEVILLE 

that these are the most humorous happen- 
ings imaginable. 

Individuality of method is as much a char- 
acteristic of these fun-makers as is similarity 
of motive. Each, whether male or female, 
has his own special brand of humor. What 
could be more widely different than the dry 
whimsicality which characterizes Marshall 
Wilder and the smooth mellifluousness 
which has gained for George Evans the 
sobriquet of the "Honeyboy." 

The measure of the success of each is al- 
most purely a matter of personality. But 
we can trace in the work of all of them 
the same directness and clarity of appeal 
and the feeling for proportion we have al- 
ready alluded to in a former chapter. 

They are very truly a factor of modern 
life and supply much of the funny anec- 
dote and epigram which subsequently en- 
liven after-dinner speeches, political discus- 
sions and various other occasions of pub- 
lic speaking. And, by way of completing 



FUN-MAKERS 215 

the circle, every story, or repartee, or other 
laugh-making utterance which originates 
elsewhere, is pretty certain, sooner or later, 
to find its way into Vaudeville. 



CHAPTER XII 

Some Other Turns 

IN this brief glance at a few of the most 
characteristic of Vaudeville turns there 
can be no attempt to mention every variety 
of form under which they may be presented. 
For of necessity the most distinguishing 
trait of Vaudeville is its variety and, unless 
we recognize this, we ignore its most salient 
feature. So that the deeper we go into 
the subject the more varied and numerous 
will be the aspects of the offerings which 
claim our attention. Anything that will 
amuse, interest, or satisfy the curiosity is 
welcome. But the welcome is easily outworn 
and, if the only claim to interest is that of 
novelty, it cannot expect to have more than 
a brief day. But novelty is one of the es- 
sentials, so that even acts, having interest 
216 




GERTRUDE BARNES 



SOME OTHER TURNS 217 

beyond that of curiosity, must be constant- 
ly refurbished to make them appear new. 
What wonder, then, if turns are sometimes 
incongruous or far-fetched? 

Accordingly, we have every imaginable 
thing, animate or inanimate, keenly scruti- 
nized with a view to their use for enter- 
tainment. The circus is freely borrowed 
from and animals of all sorts are pressed 
into service. We have bears on roller skates ; 
ponies who ring out a tune on hand-bells; 
and cats, dogs, rabbits, pigeons, presenting 
episodes that imitate the doings of the domi- 
nant race — sometimes in a manner far from 
complimentary. We have monkeys who play 
billiards, ride bicycles, smoke and drink and 
behave generally in a manner so like an ex- 
tremely ill-bred man that it is a wonder that 
some of the audience do not feel affronted. 

Until the acts are actually tried out it is 
impossible for certain what will capture the 
fancy of an audience, and there are some 
which must rack the nerves of the local man- 
ager every Monday matinee, so narrow is 



218 VAUDEVILLE 

the line on which they waver between suc- 
cess and failure. 

There is a young man, called Van Hoven, 
whose offering consists of incoherent chat- 
ter, mostly about his own personal affairs, 
delivered by way of an aside to the con- 
ductor of the orchestra while he pretends 
to be occupied with some childishly simple 
tricks of palming, which he does so badly 
that they could not pass muster at a coun- 
try school entertainment. In carrying out 
one of these tricks he leaves the stage and 
rushes about among the audience to entreat 
the assistance of two volunteers for one of 
his tricks. From the gallery or some other 
remote part of the house he finally emerges 
with two boys evidently especially selected 
on account of the impenetrable stupidity 
of their appearance. He brings them to the 
stage and proceeds to pour out breathlessly 
a string of contradictory instructions to 
them which they stolidly and conscientiously 
try to follow. The unsmiling bewilderment 
of their efforts invariably convulses the au- 



SOME OTHER TURNS 219 

dience with merriment and brings the act 
to a successful termination, but the senti- 
ment throughout the act is very critical and 
not a few disapproving remarks are made. 

In the case of this act one can follow 
the public sentiment in some such way as 
this : the first stage is expectancy. "He will 
surely do something soon." 

The second stage is Exasperation: "Why 
doesn't he begin to do something?" 

The third stage is amazement: "The nerve 
of him to keep us waiting and not do any- 
thing." 

The last stage is amusement: "He actual- 
ly hasn't done anything but he has gotten 
away with it just the same." 

And the audience laughs heartily at the 
young man's colossal nerve, its own credulity 
and the bewildered confusion of the two 
boys who are the young man's assistants. 

What manager can feel sure that his au- 
dience will take the joke good-naturedly? 

The desire to see a celebrity, or, unfortu- 
nately, a notoriety is the motive of certain 



220 VAUDEVILLE 

turns. And for some reason it seems to 
make these celebrities more real and tangi- 
ble if they appear in other than their wonted 
metier. To hear a prizefighter talk, or a peer 
of England sing, or to see a baseball player 
act or an actor play baseball would seem to 
demonstrate that these people of whom we 
have read in the papers are just ordinary 
folks, not prodigies of tremendous achieve- 
ment only, but capable of doing other things 
than those which have made them famous or 
with which their names have become associ- 
ated. It is not a very elevated attitude of 
mind, but it is very human and by no means 
confined to the unintelligent. We find, for 
instance, so brilliant a man as Samuel But- 
ler in his Note Book chuckling unmercifully 
over the idea that a bishop is seasick like any 
ordinary mortal. 

Very accomplished are some of the car- 
toonists and sand artists who evolve in full 
sight of their audience a spirited sketch from 
quite unsuggestive beginnings. From two 
foliations, which, when first presented, might 




AL JOLSON 



SOME OTHER TURNS 221 

be taken for vegetables, may grow perhaps 
the ear and necktie of a well-known poli- 
tician or perhaps a cow's head and cottage 
chimney in a landscape. The skill and in- 
genuity of these artists keep the audience 
expectant and eager all through the build- 
ing up stroke by stroke of the subject and 
calls for admiration when it is ultimately 
achieved. 

The latest inventions of science, if suf- 
ficiently spectacular, find easy admittance 
on to the Vaudeville stage and gramophones, 
tel-electric and kinetophones are only some 
of the wonders here displayed. And, apro- 
pos of the kinetophone, it would seem as 
though the time were about ripe for the ar- 
tistic genius of the moving picture to arise. 
For, in the case of the latter, we are, at 
present, in the anomalous condition of hav- 
ing an elaborate apparatus of wonderful 
mechanical possibilities but as yet no dra- 
matic or artistic technique with which to 
develop their resources. Consequently, the 
effect of the voice being added to the motion 



222 (VAUDEVILLE 

picture, so far from rendering the presenta- 
tions more interesting, has only given to 
them a weapon which they are not able to 
wield. For, to time voice and action in such 
a way as shall become natural and easy when 
represented on the screen has not yet become 
part of the actor's equipment, any more 
than to write dialogue which shall not im- 
pede the movement of the pictures has be- 
come part of the playwright's. We are, 
therefore, conscious that the two are con- 
stantly tripping over and impeding each 
other, and the slight but lively plots of the 
"movies" are being cumbered up with banal 
dialogue which makes them ponderous and 
tiresome. It is like having the joke ex- 
plained to you, you don't enjoy it, neither 
does the joker. 

Another combination of scientific mechan- 
ism with entertainment is found in those 
living pictures, shown with the aid of a stere- 
opticon. In these a living model, clad in a 
full suit of white tights, poses before a 
white cloth, and the stereopticon playing on 



SOME OTHER TURNS 223 

her makes her appear in varying guises, 
while the picture it throws on the screen af- 
fords a suitable setting. Anything, from 
a mermaid to a lady in a winter suit with 
furs going to church, may be presented in 
this way and from these materials. Very 
ingenious and sometimes beautiful as they 
are already, there is no doubt that this idea 
is capable of being worked out to a higher 
degree of artistic merit. 

Another turn equally interesting from the 
point of view of mechanical ingenuity and 
pictorial effect is that of the Flying Bal- 
let. The apparatus used is now so perfect 
that the flyers can adjust their costumes to 
its requirements so that it is hardly percep- 
tible. The working of the mechanism, too, 
is now so smooth and even that there is no 
effect of artificiality about the motions. 
Very charming and fairy-like are the effects 
possible to achieve when to the cunning of 
the mechanical genius is added the imagina- 
tion of the artist. 

In the water as well as in the air our en- 



224 VAUDEVILLE 

tertainers perform for our delight. Be- 
sides high dives we have endurance divers 
who rival the amphibious seal in the length 
of time they will remain under water. 

Another water-act that holds its own in its 
invigorating freshness and out-of-door 
flavor is that of "The Girl from the Golden 
West." She swims against a strong cur- 
rent, forced through a tank by some me- 
chanical process; motion pictures of her 
dashing swim through the Golden Gate hav- 
ing been previously shown. The girlish 
joyousness with which she accomplishes her 
undertaking, her freedom from affectation 
or professional superiority, gives the genu- 
ine tonic feeling of a breath of fresh air to 
her performance. She seems to be just the 
active sport-loving type of wholesome girl- 
hood that we encourage in our college gym- 
nasiums and high-school basketball teams. 

Of the outdoor world, too, are the Wild 
West acts, the Australian Wood Choppers, 
the scenes of the darkies in the cotton fields 
and the campflre acts which we see from 




LA PETITE ADELAIDE 



SOME OTHER TURNS 225 

time to time. But the "Rubes" and "Siss" 
country girl types are usually very sophisti- 
cated, not to say stagy. 

We might go on ceaselessly, for there is 
no end to the variety of the offerings. But 
it would be far beyond the compass of this 
book to try to give account of all. We do 
not even mention the various acts given in 
the Revues, though they differ not at all 
from those of Vaudeville. If we could by 
any chance mention anything that would 
prove amusing or interesting and has not 
yet appeared, there is little reason to doubt 
that, should it reach the eye of any enter- 
prising manager, we should see it billed for 
next Monday week. 

For they work zealously for their master, 

the public, do these managers and they have 

a very potent argument with which they 

can persuade those who have wares to sell 

to bring them to their market. 

******* 

And so the curtain falls and the Show is 
over. 



226 VAUDEVILLE 

Did you like it? Some of it, yes, some 
of it, no. I suppose that would be the an- 
swer of ninety-nine out of every hundred 
of the dispersing audience. 

Well! it is YOUR show. It is there be- 
cause it is what is wanted by the average 
of you. If you want it different you only 
have to make the demand loud enough, large 
enough, persistent enough. For these 
figures you see on the stage are but a re- 
flection of what YOU, their creators want. 
They are the shadows cast on the screen by 
the actors in the old-time gallanty-show. 
The figures may be dwarfed to insignifi- 
cance or enlarged to preposterous size. Yet 
they are but the figures of you, yourselves, 
and represent, if not your actual appear- 
ance, some travesty of it made by the relation 
your own form bears to the source of its 
inspiration. More or less truly it throws 
upon its screen the current sentiment of the 
day. We cannot escape from its influence. 
The echoes of its songs are in our streets, our 
homes, our ballrooms, we hear them at our 



SOME OTHER TURNS 227 

parades and public ceremonies and here, as 
I write these words, far from the busy 
streets, amid woods and hills, the sounds are 
borne to me over the water of young voices 
chanting in chorus, and the song is a song 
of Vaudeville. 

We have put our entertainers behind the 
frame of a proscenium arch and let down a 
curtain to mark the division between actor 
and audience. But the actor is still the re- 
flection of his audience. 

"The best of this kind are but shadows; 
and the worst are no worse, if imagination 
amend them." 





INDEX 




Abbott, Annie 


191 


Collins, Jose 


79 


Adelaide, La Petite 


104 


Cooper, George 


111 


Allen, Maude 


138 


Cowle, Jane 


138 


Anger, Lou 


80 


Cox, Ray 


213 


Barnard, Sophye 


80 


d'Angelis, Jefferson 


78 


Barnes, Gertrude 


74 


d'Armond, Isabel 


212 


Barry, Katie 


16T 


Daly, Arnold 


121 


Barrymore, Ethel 


122 


Dare, Violet 


139 


Bayes, Nora 


27 


Dazie, Mile. 


104 


Bernhardt, Sarah 


25 


Dewitt, Burns and 




Bogannys, The 


178 


Torrance 


179 


Brack Troupe 


175 


Dickerman, Rube 


207 


Brown, Martin 


106 


Dockstader, Lew 


200 


Burks, Hattie 


107 


Doldsmith, Lillian 


100 






Dolly, Roszcika 


106 


Carus, Emma 


85 


Duncan, Isadora 


98 


Castle, Irene and 




Duprez, Fred 


203 


Vernon 


103 






Caruso 


203 


Eis, Alice 


101 


Charmon, The "Perfect 


Elinor, Kate 


211 


Woman" 


181 


"Dainty Marie" 


184 


Chevalier, Albert 


45 


Evans, George 


214 


Ching Ling Foo 


190 






Claire, Ina 


78 


Farber Girls 


109 


Clayton, Bessie 


103 


Fiske, Mrs. 


138 


Cliff, Laddie 


33 


Fitzgibbon, Bert 


204 


Clifford, Kathleen 


213 


French, Bert 


101 


Cline, Maggie 


62 


Fulton, Maud 


109 



229 



230 


INDEX 




Gabler, Hedda 


119 


McMahon, Diamond and 


Glaser, Lulu 


78 


Clemence 


109 


Gordon, Cliff 


207 


Maclntyre and Heath 


200 


Gordon, Kitty 


78 


Maskelyn and Cook 


187 


Granville, Taylor 


127 


Max, Wiley 


108 


Green, Ethel 


74 


Melrose, Bert 


177 


Grey, Silvia 


97 


Miller and Lyle 


111 


Guerita, Laura 


78 


Montgomery, Marshall 


71 


Guilbert, Yvette 


57 


Moore, George 


31 






Mori Brothers 


172 


Hanlon & Clifford 


173 






Herbert, Joseph 


100 


O'Neil, Nance 


126 


Herman, Carl 
Hoffman, Gertrude 
Houdini 


188 
102 
194 


Pierpont, Laura 
Primrose, George 


127 
111 


Janis, Elsie 
Jolson, Al 


140 

202 


Reeve, Ada 
Reeves, Sims 
Rivoli, Caesar 


164 
157 
141 


Kellerman, Annette 
Kidder, Kathryn 


183 
124 


Robinson, William 
Rock, William 
Rogers, Will 


111 
109 
181 


LaRue, Grace 


78 


Russell, Lillian 


78 


Lamberti 


141 


St. Denis, Ruth 


25 


Lauder, Harry 


50 


Sandow 


180 


Lind, Letty 


97 


Seamon, Charles F. 


81 


Lloyd, Alice 


156 


Shaw, Lilian 


55 


Lloyd, Marie 


152 


Smith, Jo 


110 


Loftus, Cecelia 


137 


Suratt, Valeska 


102 


Lorraine, Fred 


107 






Lyn, Novita and Billy 107 


Tanguay, Eva 


36 






Taylor, Laurette 


140 


McCormick, Hugh 


116 


Templeton, Fay 


66 


McCoy, Bessie 


104 


Ten Eyck, Melissa 


108 


McDermott, Bill 


205 


Tilley, Vesta 


156 


McGiveney 


142 


Tinney, Frank 


201 





INDEX 


231 


Vance, Eunice 


79 


Warfield, David 


209 


Vanderbilt, Gertrude 


29 


Weber, Joe 


209 


Van Hoven 


218 


Welch, Ben 


209 


Victoria, Vesta 


161 


Wilder, Marshall P. 


214 






Wills, Nat 


205 


Wallace, Grace 


116 


Williams, Bert 


202 


Walsh, Blanche 


127 


Williams, Gus 


200 



